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9 I 



LINCOLN 



The selections in this vokime are takei- 
by permission, from the authorized edition ot 
" The Complete Works of Abraham Lin- 
coln," by John G. Nicolay and John Hay. 



This reduced copy of a photograph of Abraham 
Lincoln (from the original negative taken in 
i860) is here published by special permission 
given to the Century Co. by the owner, George 
B. Ayres, artist, of Philadelphia. 



LINCOLN 

PASSAGES FROM HIS 
SPEECHES AND LETTERS 



WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY 
RICHARD WATSON GILDER 






THE CENTURY CO. 
NEW YORK . . MCMI 



iH6 j 
[the library of! 

I CONGRESS, I 
I Two CoHtb Rece/vedI 

SEP. 25 1901 ' 

^OPVR(QHT ENTRY 

CLASS ^XXc N* 

COPY D. 

Copyright, 1901, by 
The Century Co, 



• •• I 



THE DEVINNE PRESS. 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Introduction ix 

1 Lincoln's Ambition ... 3 

II To A Friend 5 

HI Advice to Young Lawyers 9 

IV Slavery 15 

V Slavery i8 

VI The Real Southern View 

OF Slavery 20 

VII The Right of Self-Gov- 

ernment 26 

VIII Meaning of the Declara- 
tion OF Independence . 30 

IX "A House Divided against 

Itself Cannot Stand " . 34 
X Resistance to the Su- 
preme Court 36 

XI Repeal of the Missouri 

Compromise 42 

XII Notes for Speeches ... 47 
XIII The Negro Included in 
vii 



PAGE 

THE Declaration of In- 
dependence 50 

XIV The Dred Scott Decision 53 

XV The Wrong of Slavery . 58 

XVI The Principles of Jef- 
ferson 70 

XVII A Look into the Future . 74 

xviii Autobiographical .... 79 

XIX An Appeal to the South . 84 

XX Farewell Address at 
Springfield, Illinois, 
February ii, 1861 . . . 108 

XXI From his Reply to the 
Address of Welcome at 
Indianapolis, Indiana, 
February ii, 1861 . . . no 

XXII Address in Independence 
Hall, Philadelphia, Feb- 
ruary 22, 1861 1X2 

XXIII First Inaugural Address, 

March 4, 1861 116 

XXIV Letter to Horace Greeley 144 

XXV Dependence upon God . . 147 

XXVI Meditation on the Divine 

Will 149 

XXVII Letter to General Mc- 

Clellan 151 

viii 



PAGE 

XXVIII Telegram to General 

McClellan 158 

XXIX Emancipation Proclamation 159 

XXX Letter to the Working- 
men OF Manchester, 
England 166 

XXXI Letter TO General Hooker 172 

XXXII Letter to General Grant 175 

xxxiii Letter to J. C. Conkling 177 

XXXIV The Gettysburg Address . 190 

xxxv Response to a Serenade . 193 

XXXVI Letter of Condolence to 
Mrs. Bixby of Boston, 
Massachusetts .... 197 
xxxvii Second Inaugural Address 199 



INTRODUCTION 

Of style, in the ordinary use of 
the word, Lincoln may be said to 
have had little. He certainly 
did not strive for an artistic 
method of expression through 
such imitation of the masters, 
for instance, as Robert Louis 
Stevenson's. There was nothing 
ambitiously elaborate or self- 
consciously simple in Lincoln's 
way of writing. He had not the 
scholar's range of words. He 
was not always grammatically ac- 
curate. He would doubtless have 
been very much surprised if any 
one had told him that he had a 
"style " at all. And yet, because 
he was determined to be under- 
stood, because he was honest, be- 



cause he had a warm heart and 
a true, because he had read good 
books eagerly and not coldly, 
and because there was m him a 
native good taste, as well as a 
strain of imagination, he achieved 
a singularly clear and forcible 
style, which took color from his 
own noble character, and be- 
came a thing individual and dis- 
tinguished. 

He was,indeed,extremely mod- 
est about his accomplishments. 
His great desire was to convince 
those whom he addressed, and if 
he could do this,— if he could 
make his views clear to them, still 
more if he could make them ap- 
pear reasonable,— he was satis- 
fied. In one of his speeches in 
the great debate with Douglas he 
said: "Gentlemen, Judge Doug- 
las informed you that this speech 
of mine was probably carefully 



prepared. I admit that it was. 
I am not a master of language ; 
I have not a fine education ; I am 
not capable of entering into a 
disquisition upon dialectics, as I 
believe you call it ; but I do not 
believe the language I employed 
bears any such construction as 
Judge Douglas puts upon it. But 
I don't care about a quibble in 
regard to words. I know what I 
meant, and I will not leave this 
crowd in doubt, if I can explain 
it to them, what I really meant in 
the use of that paragraph." 

Who are, to Americans at 
least, the two most interesting 
men of action of the nineteenth 
century? Why not Napoleon 
and Lincoln? No two men 
could have been more radically 
different in many ways ; but they 
were both great rulers, one ac- 
cording to the "good old plan " 



of might, the other by the good 
new plan of right : autocrat — 
democrat. They were ahke in 
this — that both were intensely in- 
teresting personalities ; both were 
moved by imagination ; and both 
acquired remarkable power of ex- 
pression. One used this power to 
carry out his own sometimes wise, 
sometimes selfish, purposes ; to 
dominate and to deceive ; the 
other for the expression of truth 
and the persuasion of his fellow- 
men. 

Napoleon's literary art was 
the making of phrases which 
pierced like a Corsican knife or 
tingled the blood like the call of 
a trumpet. His words went to 
their mark quick as a stroke of 
lightning. When he speaks it is 
as if an earthquake had passed 
under one's feet. 

Lincoln's style is very differ- 



ent; heroic, appealing, gracious 
or humorous, it does not so 
much startle as melt the heart. 
These men were alike in this — 
that they learned to express them- 
selves by dint of long practice, and 
both in youth wrote much non- 
sense. Napoleon in his young 
days wrote romance and history ; 
Lincoln wrote verse and composed 
speeches. Napoleon failed as a 
literary man ; Lincoln certainly 
did not make any great success as 
a lyceum lecturer; in fact, his 
style was at its best only when 
his whole heart was enlisted. 

Lincoln's style, at its best, is 
characterized by great simplicity 
and directness, which in them- 
selves are artistic qualities. In 
addition there is an agreeable 
cadence, not overdone except in 
one curious instance, — a passage 
of the Second Inaugural, — where 



it deflects into actual rhythm 
and rhyme : 

Fondly do we hope — fervently do we 

pray- 
That this mighty scourge of war may 

speedily pass away. 

This does not spoil, but it some- 
what injures, one of the most 
memorable of his writings. 

Then there is in Lincoln a 
quaintness, a homeliness and 
humor of illustration, along with 
a most engaging frankness and 
intellectual honesty. The reader 
has both an intellectual and moral 
satisfaction in the clearness and 
fairness of the statement. All 
this affects agreeably the literary 
form, and helps to give Lincoln's 
style at times the charm of imagi- 
native utterance ; for imagination 
in literature is, essentially, the 
faculty of seeing clearly and the 



art of stating clearly the actual 
reality. There was nothing of 
invention in Lincoln's imagina- 
tion ; his was the imagination 
that is implied in a strong realiza- 
tion of the truth of things in the 
mind of the writer or speaker. 

When these letters and 
speeches of Lincoln were appear- 
ing in the papers as part of the 
news of the day, I wonder how 
many of us who were then living 
appreciated them from the liter- 
ary point of view. I remember- 
that at a certain period, some 
time after the war, I seemed for 
the first time to awake fully to 
the attraction of Lincoln's style. 
Beginning with the famous and 
familiar speech at Gettysburg, I 
reread many of his writings, and 
felt everywhere his genius for 
expression. 

Where and how did Lincoln 



gain this mastery of expression? 
He said of himself: 

The aggregate of all his schooling 
did not amount to one year. He 
was never in a college or academy as 
a student. . . . What he has in the 
way of education he has picked up. 
After he was twenty-three and had 
separated from his father, he studied 
English grammar — imperfectly, of 
course, but so as to speak and write 
as well as he now does. He studied 
and nearly mastered the six books of 
Euclid since he was a member of Con- 
gress. He regrets his want of edu- 
cation and does what he can to supply 
the want. 



As a boy at home we are told that 
he would write, and do sums in 
arithmetic, on the wooden shovel 
by the fireside, shaving off the 
used surface and beginning 
again. At nineteen it is re- 
corded that he "had read every 



book he could find, and could 
spell down the whole country." 
He read early the Bible, ^sop's 
"Fables," "Robinson Crusoe," 
"Pilgrim's Progress," a history 
of the United States, Weems's 
"Life of Washington," Frank- 
lin's "Autobiography"; later, 
the life of Clay and the works of 
Burns and Shakspere. Not a 
bad list of books if taken seri- 
ously and not mixed with trash ; 
for, of course, culture has to do 
not so much with the extent of 
the information as with the depth 
of the impression. 

The youthful Lincoln pon- 
dered also over the Revised 
Statutes of Indiana; and "he 
would sit in the twilight and read 
a dictionary as long as he could 
see." John Hanks said: "When 
Abe and I returned to the house 
from work he \\ ould iro to the 



cupboard, snatch a piece of corn- 
bread, take down a book, sit 
down, cock his legs up as high 
as his head, and read." At 
twenty-four, when he was sup- 
posed to be keeping a shop, 
Nicolay and Hay speak of the 
"grotesque youth, habited in 
homespun tow, lying on his back, 
with his feet on the trunk of the 
tree, and poring over his book by 
the hour, grinding around with 
the shade as it shifted from north 
to east." 

The youth not only read and 
thought, but wrote, among other 
things, nonsensical verses ; and 
he composed speeches. He went 
early into politics, and soon be- 
came a thoughtful and effective 
speaker and debater. Of the 
language that Lincoln heard and 
used in boyhood, says Nicolay, 
in an essay on " Lincoln's Literary 



Experiments " printed since the 
"Life" was issued, "though the 
vocabulary was scanty, the words 
were short and forcible." He 
learned among men and women 
poor and inured to hardship 
how the plain people think and 
feel. 

In his young manhood at 
Springfield he measured wits with 
other bright young lawyers, in 
plain and direct language before 
plain and simple-minded audi- 
tors, either in political discus- 
sion or in the court-room ; either 
in the capital or in the country 
towns of Illinois. His mathemat- 
ical and legal studies were an aid 
to precise statement, and his na- 
tive honesty made him frank and 
convincing in argument. He felt 
himself to be a poor defender of 
a guilty client, and sometimes 
shirked the job. 



If for a brief period in his 
youth he indulged in anything 
resembHng the spread-eagle style 
of oratory, he was quick, as Nico- 
lay declares, to realize the dan- 
ger and overcome the tempta- 
tion. His secretary relates that 
in his later years he used to re- 
peat with glee the description of 
the Southwestern orator of whom 
it is said: "He mounted the ros- 
trum, threw back his head, shined 
his eyes, and left the conse- 
quences to God." 

By practice in extemporary 
speaking Lincoln learned to do a 
most difficult thing — namely, to 
produce literature on his legs. It 
is difficult thus to produce litera- 
ture, because the words must flow 
with immediate precision. It is 
unusual for a politician to go 
through life always addressing 
audiences, and yet always avoid- 
xxii 



ing the orator's temptation to 
please and captivate by extrava- 
gant and false sentiment and 
statement. The writer, and par- 
ticularly the political writer, is 
tempted to this sort of immo- 
rality, but still more the speaker, 
for with the latter the reward of 
applause is prompt and seductive. 
It is amazing to look over Lin- 
coln's record and find how seldom 
he went beyond bounds, how fair 
and just he was, how responsible 
and conscientious his utterances 
long before these utterances be- 
came of national importance. 
Yet it was largely because of this 
very quality that they assumed 
national importance. And then 
both his imagination and his sym- 
pathy helped him here, for while 
he saw and keenly felt his own 
side of the argument, he could 
see as clearly, and he could sym- 
xxiii 



pathetically understand, the side 
of his opponent. 

Lincoln was barely twenty- 
three when, as a candidate for 
the legislature, he issued a formal 
address to the people of Sanga- 
mon County. It is the first paper 
preserved by Nicolay and Hay in 
their collection of his addresses 
and letters. Nicolay well says 
that "as a literary production no 
ordinary college graduate would 
need to be ashamed of it." 

In this address we already find 
that honest purpose, that "sweet 
reasonableness " and persuasive- 
ness of speech, which is charac- 
teristic of his later and more cele- 
brated utterances. In his gath- 
ered writings and addresses we 
find, indeed, touches of the true 
Lincoln genius here and there 
from the age of twenty-three on. 
In the literary record of about his 
xxiv 



thirty-third year occur some of 
the most surprising proofs of the 
dehcacy of his nature — of that 
culture of the soul which had 
taken place in him in the midst 
of such harsh and unpromis- 
ing environment. Reference is 
made to the letters written to 
his young friend Joshua F. 
Speed, a member of the Ken- 
tucky family associated by mar- 
riage with the family of the poet 
Keats. 

In Lincoln's early serious verse 
the feeling is right, though the 
art is lacking; but the verses 
are interesting in that they 
show a good ear. Note has been 
m.ade of a pleasing cadence in 
Lincoln's prose ; and it is not 
strange that he should show a 
rhythmical sense in his verse. 
He showed a good deal of com- 
mon sense in not going on with 

XXV 



this sort of thing, and in confin- 
ing the pubHcation of his inade- 
quate rhymes to the sacred privacy 
of indulgent and sympathetic 
friendship. 

We come now to Lincoln 
the accomplished orator. His 
speech in Congress on the 28th 
of January, 1848, on the Mexican 
War, strikes the note of solemn 
verity and of noble indignation 
which a little later rang through 
the country and, with other 
voices, aroused it to a sense of 
impending danger. 

It was in 1851 that he wrote 
some family letters that not only 
show him in a charming light as 
the true and wise friend of his 
shiftless stepbrother, but the af- 
fectionate guardian of his step- 
mother, who had been such a 
good mother to him. There is 
something Greek in the clear 



phrase and pure reason of these 
epistles. 

Dear Brother : When I came 
into Charleston day before yesterday, 
I learned that you are anxious to sell 
the land where you live and move to 
Missouri. I have been thinking of 
this ever since, and cannot but think 
such a notion is utterly foolish. 
What can you do in Missouri better 
than here? Is the land any richer? 
Can you there, any more than here, 
raise corn and wheat and oats without 
work? Will anybody there, any 
more than here, do your work for 
you? If you intend to go to work, 
there is no better place than right 
where you are ; if you do not intend 
to go to work, you cannot get along 
anywhere. Squirming and crawling 
about from place to place can do no 
good. You have raised no crop this 
year ; and what you really want is to 
sell the land, get the money, and 
spend it. Part with the land you 
xxvii 



have, and, my life upon it, you will 
never after own a spot big enough 
to bury you in. 

We find in his Peoria speech of 
1854 a statement of his long con- 
tention against the extension of 
slavery, and a proof of his ability 
to cope intellectually with the 
ablest debaters of the West. His 
Peoria speech was in answer to 
Judge Douglas, with whom four 
years afterward he held the fa- 
mous debate. Lincoln was now 
forty-five years old, and his ora- 
tory contains that moral impetus 
which was to give it greater and 
greater power. 

In 1856 occurred the Fremont 
and Dayton campaign, which 
came not so very far from being 
the Fremont and Lincoln cam- 
paign. In a speech in this cam- 
paign he used a memorable 
xxviii 



phrase: "All this talk about the 
dissolution of the Union is hum- 
bug, nothing but folly. We do 
not want to dissolve the Union; 
you shall noty In his famous 
speech delivered at Springfield, 
Illinois, at the close of the Re- 
publican State Convention of 
1858, — in which he had been 
named as candidate for United 
States senator, — the skilful and 
serious orator rises not merely 
to the broad level of nationality, 
but to the plane of universal hu- 
manity. As events thicken and 
threaten, his style becomes more 
solemn. So telling at last his 
power of phrase that it would 
hardly seem to be an exaggera- 
tion to declare that the war itself 
was partly induced by the fact 
that Abraham Lincoln was able 
to express his pregnant thoughts 
with the art of a master. How 



familiar now these words of 
prophecy : 

" A house divided against itself 
cannot stand." I believe this gov- 
ernment cannot endure permanently 
half slave and half free. I do not 
expect the Union to be dissolved — I 
do not expect the house to fall — but 
I do expect it will cease to be divided. 

The cadence of Lincoln's prose 
with its burden of high hope, 
touched with that heroism which 
is so near to pathos, reminds one 
of the Leitmotif, the " leading 
motive " in symphony and 
music-drama of which musicians 
make use, and which is espe- 
cially characteristic of the man- 
ner of Wagner : 

Two years ago the Republicans of 
the nation mustered over thirteen 
hundred thousand strong. We did 
this under the single impulse of re- 

XXX 



sistance to a common danger, with 
every external circumstance against 
us. Of strange, discordant, and even 
hostile elements, we gathered from 
the four winds, and formed and 
fought the battle through, under the 
constant hot fire of a disciplined, 
proud, and pampered enemy. Did 
we brave all then to falter now — 
now, when that same enemy is waver- 
ing, dissevered, and belligerent? 
The result is not doubtful. We shall 
not fail — if we stand firm, we shall 
not fail. Wise counsels may accel- 
erate or ?nistakes delay it, hit, soojier 
or later, the victory is sure to come. 

We have arrived now at the 
period of the joint debate be- 
tween Lincoln and Douglas. In 
Lincoln we have the able and 
practised attorney, with one side 
of his nature open to the eternal ; 
in Douglas the skilful lawyer, 
adroit and ambitious, not easily 



moved by the moral appeals 
which so quickly took hold upon 
Lincoln, but a man capable of 
right and patriotic action when 
the depths of his nature were 
stirred. 

One of the most characteristic 
qualities of Lincoln's expression 
is its morality, its insight, its pro- 
phecy ; and in the now famous de- 
bate he reached well-nigh the 
fullness of his power to put great 
thoughts into fitting language. 
Straight his words went into the 
minds and hearts of eagerly 
listening crowds. The question, 
he contended, was as to the right 
or the wrong of slavery : 

That [he said] is the real issue. 
That is the issue that will continue 
in this country when these poor 
tongues of Judge Douglas and myself 
shall be silent. It is the eternal 



struggle between these two principles 
— right and wrong — throughout the 
world. They are the two principles 
that have stood face to face from the 
beginning of time, and will ever con- 
tinue to struggle. The one is the 
common right of humanity, and the 
other the divine right of kings. 

A recent biographer of Lincoln, 
Mr. John T. Morse, Jr., says that 
"it is just appreciation, not ex- 
travagance, to say that the cheap 
and miserable little volume, now 
out of print, containing in bad 
newspaper type 'The Lincoln and 
Douglas Debates,' holds some of 
the masterpieces of oratory of all 
ages and nations." 

It is interesting to recall the 
fact that, in the pause of his af- 
fairs after the debate with Doug- 
las, Lincoln took up the then 
popular custom of lyceum-lec- 
turing. In the very year before 



his election to the Presidency the 
great statesman and orator was 
engaged in delivering a totally 
uninspired lecture on "Discov- 
eries, Inventions, and Improve- 
ments " in towns near Spring- 
field, and in Springfield itself on 
Washington's Birthday in the 
fateful year of i860. There was 
little in this lecture to attract the 
slightest attention ; and while it 
may have given satisfaction 
among neighbors, it could never 
have added to his fame. Yet 
when he had the opportunity of 
an engagement to lecture on po- 
litical subjects in this same month 
of February, he made what is now 
known as the "great address " at 
Cooper Union. Soon after this 
came his nomination, then his 
election to the Presidency of the 
United States ; and with these 
events he may be said to have 
xxxiv 



resumed his true literary career, 
for his style was at its best only 
when he was dealing with a cause 
in which his whole heart was en- 
listed. 

By way of contrast to what has 
passed and is to come, let us cull 
some of the passages in which 
shone Lincoln's wit and humor. 
How pleasing it is to know that 
his melancholy nature, his bur- 
dened spirit, were refreshed 
with glimpses — often storms — of 
mirth ! They say that to see 
Lmxoln laugh was an amazing 
sight. 

The humor of which we learn 
so much from those who heard 
him tell his quaint and often 
Rabelaisian stories came out 
sharply and roughly in one of his 
congressional speeches, in which 
he referred with grim sarcasm to 
General Cass's military record 

XXXV 



as used for political ammunition. 
Here are some later touches of 
his wit : "The plainest print can- 
not be read through a gold 
eagle." "If you think you can 
slander a woman into loving you, 
or a man into voting for you, try 
it till you are satisfied." Again : 
"Has Douglas the exclusive right 
in this country to be on all sides 
of all questions ? " Again : " In 
his numerous speeches now being 
made in Illinois, Senator Douglas 
regularly argues against the doc- 
trine of the equality of men ; and 
while he does not draw the con- 
clusion that the superiors ought 
to enslave the inferiors, he evi- 
dently wishes his hearers to draw 
that conclusion. He shirks the 
responsibility of pulling the house 
down, but he digs under it that 
it may fall of its own weight." 
"The enemy would fight," said 
xxxvi 



the President once, in a letter to 
General Hooker, "in intrench- 
ments, and have you at a disad- 
vantage, and so, man for man, 
worst you at that point, while his 
main force would in some way be 
getting an advantage of you 
northward. In one word, I would 
not take any risk of being en- 
tangled upon the river like an ox 
jumped half over a fence and ha- 
ble to be torn by dogs front and 
rear without a fair chance to gore 
one way or kick the other." It 
was also to Hooker that he wrote : 
"Only those generals who gain 
successes can set up dictators. 
What I now ask of you is military 
success, and I will risk the dicta- 
torship." 

In a letter written in 1859 to a 
Boston committee he said, in de- 
scribing a change in party stan- 
dards : " I remember being once 
xxxvii 



much amused at seeing two par- 
tially intoxicated men engaged in 
a fight with their greatcoats on, 
which fight, after a long and ra- 
ther harmless contest, ended in 
each haying fought himself out 
of his own coat and into that of 
the other. If the two leading 
parties of this day are really iden- 
tical with the two in the days of 
Jefferson and Adams, they have 
performed the same feat as the 
two drunken men." And this is 
from his very last public address : 
"Concede that the new govern- 
ment of Louisiana is only to what 
it should be as the egg is to the 
fowl, we shall sooner have the 
fowl by hatching the egg than by 
smashing it." 

A specimen of his spoken wit 
is the story told of his reply to 
the countryman who at a recep- 
tion said,— in the prepared speech 



XXX VIU 



that patriots so often shoot at the 
President as they plunge past him 
in the processions through the 
White House,—" I beheve in God 
Ah-nighty and Abraham Lin- 
coln." "You 're more than half 
right," quickly answered the 
President. When, at a confer- 
ence with Confederate leaders, he 
was reminded by the Southern 
commissioner, Mr. Hunter, that 
Charles I entered into an agree- 
ment with "parties in arms 
against the government," Lincoln 
said: "I do not profess to be 
posted in history. In all such 
matters I will turn you over to 
Seward. All I distinctly recollect 
about the case of Charles I is that 
he lost his head." 

Lincoln was elected to the Presi- 
dency of a country on the verge 
of civil war. In his farewell to 
xxxix 



his fellow-townsmen sounds again 
that musical "motive" of which 
I have spoken, recurring like 
the refrain of a sad but heroic 
poem. Remember the passage 
quoted before. It occurred in his 
speech of 1858: "The result is 
not doubtful. We shall not fail 
—if we stand firm, we shall not 
fail. Wise counsels may accel- 
erate or mistakes delay it, but, 
sooner or later, the victory is sure 
to come." 

In parting from his old neigh- 
bors he said : 

Here my children have been born, 
and one is buried, I now leave, not 
knowing when or whether ever I may 
return, with a task before me greater 
than that which rested upon Wash- 
ington. Without the assistance of 
that Divine Being who ever attended 
him I cannot succeed. With that 
assistance I cannot fail. Trusting in 
xl 



him, who can go with me and re- 
main with you, and be everywhere 
for good, let us confidently hope that 
all will yet be well. 

The First Inaugural concludes 
with a passage of great tender- 
ness. We learn from Nicolay 
and Hay that the suggestion of 
that passage, its first draft indeed, 
came from Seward. But com- 
pare this first draft with the pas- 
sage as amended and adopted by 
Lincoln ! This is Seward's : 

I close. We are not, we must not 
be. aliens or enemies, but fellow- 
countrymen and brethren. Although 
passion has strained our bonds of af- 
fection too hardly, they must not, I 
am sure they will not, be broken. 
The mystic chords which, proceeding 
from so many battle-fields and so 
many patriot graves, pass through all 
the hearts and all hearths in this 
broad continent of ours, will yet again 
xli 



harmonize in their ancient music 
when breathed upon by the guardian 
angel of the nation. 

And this is Lincoln's : 

I am loath to close. We are not 
enemies, but friends. We must not 
be enemies. Though passion may 
have strained, it must not break our 
bonds of affection. Tlie mystic 
chords of memory, stretching from 
every battle-field and patriot grave 
to every living heart and hearthstone 
all over this broad land, will yet swell 
the chorus of the Union when again 
touched, as surely they will be, by 
the better angels of our nature. 

There is in this last something 
that suggests music ; again we 
hear the strain of the Leitmotif. 
Strangely enough, in 1858 Lin- 
coln himself had used a figure 
not the same as, but suggestive 
of, this very one now given by 
xlii 



Seward. He was speaking of the 
moral sentiment, the sentiment 
of equaHty, in the Declaration of 
Independence. " T/iat,''^ he said, 
"is the electric chord in that Dec- 
laration, that links the hearts of 
patriotic and liberty-loving men 
together, that will link those pa- 
triotic hearts as long as the love 
of freedom exists in the minds of 
men throughout the world." 

In the final paragraph of the 
Second Inaugural we find again 
the haunting music with which 
the First Inaugural closed. On 
the heart of what American — 
North or South — are not the 
words imprinted? 

With malice toward none ; with 
charity for all ; with firmness in the 
right, as God gives us to see the 
right, let us strive on to finish the 
work we are in ; to bind up the na- 
tion's wounds ; to care for him who 
xliii 



shall have borne the battle, and for 
his widow, and his orphan — to do 
all which may achieve and cherish a 
just and lasting peace among our- 
selves, and with all nations. 

As the great musician brings 
somewhere to its highest expres- 
sion the motive which has been 
entwined from first to last in his 
music-drama, so did the expres- 
sion of Lincoln's passion for his 
country reach its culmination in 
the tender and majestic phrases 
of the Gettysburg Address : 

In a larger sense, we cannot 
dedicate — we cannot consecrate — 
we cannot hallow — this ground. 
The brave men, living and dead, 
who struggled here, have conse- 
crated it far above our poor power 
to add or detract. The world will 
little note nor long remember what 
we say here, but it can never forget 
what they did here. It is for us, 
xliv 



the living, rather, to be dedicated 
here to the unfinished work which 
they who fought here have thus far 
so nobly advanced. It is rather for 
us to be here dedicated to the great 
task remaining before us— that from 
these honored dead we take increased 
devotion to that cause for which 
they gave the last full measure of 
devotion; that we here highly re- 
solve that these, dead shall not have 
died in vain ; that this nation, under 
God, shall have a new birth of free- 
dom ; and that government of the 
people, by the people, for the people, 
shall not perish from the earth. 

But there is a letter of Lin- 
coln's which may well be asso- 
ciated with the Gettysburg 
Address. It was written, just 
one year after the delivery of 
the Address, to a mother who, 
the President heard, had lost five 
sons in the army. I believe the 
xlv 



number was not so large, though 
that does not matter. 

Executive Mansion, 
Washington, 

November 21, 1864. 
Mrs. Bixby, Boston, Massachusetts. 
Dear Madam : I have been 
shown in the files of the War De- 
partment a statement of the Adjutant- 
General of Massachusetts that you 
are the mother of five sons v^^ho have 
died gloriously on the field of battle. 
I feel how weak and fruitless must 
be any words of mine which should 
attempt to beguile you from the 
grief of a loss so overwhelming. 
But I cannot refrain from tendering 
to you the consolation that may be 
found in the thanks of the Republic 
they died to save. I pray that our 
heavenly Father may assuage the 
anguish of your bereavement, and 
leave you only the cherished memory 
of the loved and lost, and the solemn 
pride that must be yours to have 
xlvi 



laid so costly a sacrifice upon the 
altar of freedom. 

Yours very sincerely 

and respectfully, 
Abraham Lincoln. 

This letter of consolation in its 
simplicity and fitness again re- 
calls the Greek spirit. It is like 
one of those calm monuments of 
grief which the traveler may still 
behold in that small cemetery 
under the deep Athenian sky, 
where those who have been dead 
so many centuries are kept alive 
in the memories of men by an art 
which is immortal. 



xlvli 



LINCOLN 



LINCOLN 



LINCOLN S AMBITION 

From an address to the people of Sangamon 
County, issued March 9, 1832. 

Every man is said to have his 
peculiar ambition. Whether it 
be true or not, I can say, for 
one, that I have no other so 
great as that of being truly es- 
teemed of my fellow-men, by 
rendering myself worthy of 
their esteem. How far I shall 
succeed in gratifying this am- 
bition is yet to be developed. 
I am young, and unknown to 
m.any of you. I was born, and 
have ever remained, in the 
most humble walks of life. I 
have no wealthy or popular re- 



lations or friends to recommend 
me. My case is thrown ex- 
clusively upon the independent 
voters of the country ; and, if 
elected, they will have con- 
ferred a favor upon me for 
which I shall be unremitting in 
my labors to compensate. But 
if the good people in their wis- 
dom shall see fit to keep me in 
the background, I have been 
too familiar with disappoint- 
ments to be very much cha- 
grined. 



II 



TO A FRIEND 



From a letter to Joshua F. Speed, dated 
February 3, 1842. 

You well know that I do not feel 
my own sorrows much more 
keenly than I do yours, when I 
know of them ; and yet I as- 
sure you I was not much hurt 
by what you wrote me of your 
excessively bad feehng at* the 
time you wrote. 

Not that I am less capable 
of sympathizing with you now 
than ever, not that I am less 
your friend than ever, but be- 
cause I hope and believe that 
your present anxietv and dis- 
tress about her health and her 
life must and will forever ban- 



ish those horrid doubts which 
I know you sometimes felt as 
to the truth of your affection 
for her. If they can once and 
forever be removed (and I al- 
most feel a presentiment that 
the Almighty has sent your 
present affliction expressly for 
that object), surely nothing can 
come in their stead to fill their 
immeasurable measure of mis- 
ery. 

The death-scenes of those 
we love are surely painful 
enough ; but these we are pre- 
pared for and expect to see : 
they happen to all, and all 
know they must happen. Pain- 
ful as they are, they are not an 
unlooked-for sorrow. Should 
she, as you fear, be destined to 
an early grave, it is indeed a 
great consolation to know that 
she is so well prepared to meet 
it. Her religion, which you 
once disliked so much, I will 



venture you now prize most 
highly. But I hope your mel- 
ancholy bodings as to her early 
death are not well founded. I 
even hope that ere this reaches 
you she will have returned with 
improved and still improving 
health, and that you will have 
met her, and forgotten the sor- 
rows of the past in the enjoy- 
ments of the present. 

I would say more if I could, 
but it seems that I have said 
enough. It really appears to 
me that you yourself ought to 
rejoice, and not sorrow, at this 
indubitable evidence of your 
undying affection for her. 
Why, Speed, if you did not 
love her, although you might 
not wish her death, you would 
most certainly be resigned to 
it. Perhaps this point is no 
longer a question with you, 
and my pertinacious dwelling 
upon it is a rude intrusion upon 

7 



your feelings. If so, you must 
pardon me. You know the 
hell I have suffered on that 
point, and how tender I am 
upon it. 



Ill 

ADVICE TO YOUNG LAWYERS 

Notes for a law lecture, written about 
July I, 1850. 

I AM not an accomplished law- 
yer. I find quite as much 
material for a lecture in those 
points wherein I have failed as 
in those wherein I have been 
moderately successful. 

The leading rule for the law- 
yer, as for the man of every 
other calling, is diligence. 
Leave nothing for to-morrow 
which can be done to-day. 
Never let your correspondence 
fall behind. Whatever piece 
of business you have in hand, 
before stopping, do all the la- 
bor pertaining to it which can 



then be done. When you 
bring a common-law suit, if 
you have the facts for doing so, 
write the declaration at once. 
If a law point be involved, 
examine the books, and note 
the authority you rely on upon 
the declaration itself, where you 
are sure to find it when wanted. 
The same of defenses and pleas. 
In business not likely to be liti- 
gated, — ordinary collection 
cases, foreclosures, partitions, 
and the like, — make all exam- 
inations of titles, and note them, 
and even draft orders and de- 
crees in advance. This course 
has a triple advantage : it 
avoids omissions and neglect, 
saves your labor when once 
done, performs the labor out of 
court when you have leisure, 
rather than in court when you 
have not. 

Extemporaneous speaking 
should be practised and culti- 

10 



vated. It is the lawyer's ave- 
nue to the public. However 
able and faithful he may be in 
other respects, people are slow 
to bring him business if he can- 
not make a speech. And yet 
there is not a more fatal error 
to young lawyers than relying 
too much on speech-making. 
If any one, upon his rare pow- 
ers of speaking, shall claim an 
exemption from the drudgery 
of the law, his case is a failure 
in advance. 

Discourage litigation. Per- 
suade your neighbors to com- 
promise whenever you can. 
Point out to them how the 
nominal winner is often a real 
loser — in fees, expenses, and 
waste of time. As a peace- 
maker the lawyer has a supe- 
rior opportunity of being a 
good man. There will still be 
business enough. 

Never stir up litigation. A 
11 



worse man can scarcely be 
found than one who does this. 
Who can be more nearly a fiend 
than he who habitually over- 
hauls the register of deeds in 
search of defects in titles, 
whereon to stir up strife, and 
put money in his pocket? A 
moral tone ought to be infused 
into the profession which 
should drive such men out of 
it. 

The matter of fees is impor- 
tant, far beyond the mere ques- 
tion of bread and butter in- 
volved. Properly attended to, 
fuller justice is done to both 
lawyer and client. An exor- 
bitant fee should never be 
claimed. As a general rule, 
never take your whole fee in 
advance, nor any more than a 
small retainer. When fully 
paid beforehand, you are more 
than a common mortal if you 
can feel the same interest in 

12 



the case as if something was 
still in prospect for you, as well 
as for your client. And when 
you lack interest in the case 
the job will very likely lack 
skill and diligence in the per- 
formance. Settle the amount 
of fee and take a note in ad- 
vance. Then you will feel that 
you are working for something, 
and you are sure to do your 
work faithfully and well. 
Never sell a fee-note — at least 
not before the consideration 
service is performed. It leads 
to negligence and dishonesty 
— negligence by losing interest 
in the case, and dishonesty in 
refusing to refund when you 
have ahowed the consideration 
to fail. 

There is a vague popular 
belief that lawyers are neces- 
sarily dishonest. I say vague, 
because when we consider to 
what extent confidence and 

13 



honors are reposed in and con- 
ferred upon lawyers by the 
people, it appears improbable 
that their impression of dis- 
honesty is very distinct and 
vivid. Yet the impression is 
common, almost universal. 
Let no young man choosing 
the law for a calling for a mo- 
ment yield to the popular be- 
Hef. Resolve to be honest at 
all events ; and if in your own 
judgment you cannot be an 
honest lawyer, resolve to be 
honest without being a lawyer. 
Choose some other occupation, 
rather than one in the choos- 
ing of which you do, in ad- 
vance, consent to be a knave. 



u 



IV 

SLAVERY 

A fragment, written about July i, 1854. 

Equality in society alike beats 
inequality, whether the latter 
be of the British aristocratic sort 
or of the domestic slavery sort. 
We know Southern men 
declare that their slaves are 
better oE than hired laborers 
amongst us. How little they 
know whereof they speak! 
There is no permanent class of 
hired laborers amongst us. 
Twenty-five years ago I was a 
hired laborer. The hired la- 
borer of yesterday labors on his 
own account to-day, and will 
hire others to labor for him to- 
morrow. 

16 



Advancement — improve- 
ment in condition — is the order 
of things in a society of equals. 
As labor is the common bur- 
den of our race, so the effort 
of some to shift their share of 
the burden onto the shoulders 
of others is the great durable 
curse of the race. Originally 
a curse for transgression upon 
the whole race, when, as by 
slavery, it is concentrated on a 
part only, it becomes the 
double-refined curse of God 
upon his creatures. 

Free labor has the inspira- 
tion of hope ; pure slavery has 
no hope. The power of hope 
upon human exertion and hap- 
piness is wonderful. The 
slave-master himself has a con- 
ception of it, and hence the 
system of tasks among slaves. 
The slave whom you cannot 
drive with the lash to break 
seventy-five pounds of hemp in 

16 



a day, if you will task him to 
break a hundred, and promise 
him pay for all he does over, 
he will break you a hundred 
and fifty. You have substi- 
tuted hope for the rod. 

And yet perhaps it does not 
occur to you that, to the extent 
of your gain in the case, you 
have given up the slave system 
and adopted the free system of 
labor. 



17 



V 

SLAVERY 

A fragmentjof the same date as the preceding. 

If a can prove, however con- 
clusively, that he may of right 
enslave B, why may not B 
snatch the same argument and 
prove equally that he may en- 
slave A? You say A is white 
and B is black. It is color, 
then ; the lighter having the 
right to enslave the darker? 
Take care. By this rule you 
are to be slave to the first man 
you meet with a fairer skin 
than your own. 

You do not mean color ex- 
actly? You mean the whites 
are intellectually the superiors 
of the blacks, and therefore 

18 



have the right to enslave them? 
Take care again. By this rule 
you are to be slave to the first 
man you meet with an intellect 
superior to your own. 

But, say you, it is a question 
of interest, and if you make it 
your interest you have the right 
to enslave another. Very well. 
And if he can make it his in- 
terest he has the right to en- 
slave you. 



ly 



VI 

THE REAL SOUTHERN VIEW 
OF SLAVERY 

From a speech delivered at Peoria, Illinois, 
October 16,1854, in reply to Senator Douglas. 

Equal justice to the South, it 
is said, requires us to consent 
to the extension of slavery to 
new countries. That is to say, 
inasmuch as you do not object 
to my taking my hog to Ne- 
braska, therefore I must not 
object to you taking your 
slave. 

Now, I admit that this is 
perfectly logical, if there is no 
difference between hogs and 
negroes. But while you thus re- 
quire me to deny the humanity 
of the negro, I wish to ask whe- 
20 



ther you of the South yourselves 
have ever been wilhng to do as 
much. It is kindly provided 
that of all those who come into 
the world only a small percen- 
tage are natural tyrants. That 
percentage is no larger in the 
slave States than in the free. 
The great majority South, as 
well as North, have human 
sympathies, of which they can 
no more divest themselves than 
they can of their sensibility to 
physical pain. These sympa- 
thies in the bosoms of the 
Southern people manifest, in 
many ways, their sense of the 
wrong of slavery, and their 
consciousness that, after all, 
there is humanity in the negro. 
If they deny this, let me ad- 
dress them a few plain ques- 
tions. In 1820 you joined the 
North, almost unanimously, in 
declaring the African slave- 
trade piracy, and in annexing 
21 



to it the punishment of death. 
Why did you do this? If you 
did not feel that it was wrong, 
why did you join in providing 
that men should be hung for it? 
The practice was no more than 
bringing wild negroes from 
Africa to such as would buy 
them. But you never thought 
of hanging men for catching 
and seUing wild horses, wild 
buffaloes, or wild bears. 

Again, you have among you 
a sneaking individual of the 
class of native tyrants known 
as the " Slave- Dealer." He 
watches your necessities, and 
crawls up to buy your slave at 
a speculating price. If you 
cannot help it, you sell to him ; 
but if you can help it, you 
drive him from your door. 
You despise him utterly. You 
do not recognize him as a 
friend, or even as an honest 
man. Your children must not 

22 



play with his ; they may rollick 
freely with the little negroes, 
but not with the slave-dealer's 
children. If you are obliged 
to deal with him, you try to 
get through the job without so 
much as touching him. It is 
common with you to join hands 
with the men you meet, but 
with the slave-dealer you avoid 
the ceremony — instinctively 
shrinking from the snaky con- 
tact. If he grows rich and re- 
tires from business, you still 
remember him, and still keep 
up the ban of non-intercourse 
upon him and his family. 
Now why is this? You do 
not so treat the man who deals 
in corn, cotton, or tobacco. 

And yet again. There are 
in the United States and Ter- 
ritories, including the District 
of Columbia, 433,643 free 
blacks. At five hundred dol- 
lars per head they are worth 

23 



over two hundred millions of 
dollars. How comes this vast 
amount of property to be run- 
ning about without owners? 
We do not see free horses or 
free cattle running at large. 
How is this? All these free 
blacks are the descendants of 
slaves, or have been slaves 
themselves ; and they would be 
slaves now but for something 
which has operated on their 
white owners, inducing them 
at vast pecuniary sacrifice to 
liberate them. What is that 
something? Is there any mis- 
taking it? In all these cases 
it is your sense of justice and 
human sympathy continually 
telling you that the poor negro 
has some natural right to him- 
self — that those who deny it 
and make mere merchandise 
of him deserve kickings, con- 
tempt, and death. 

And now why will you ask us 

24 



I 



to deny the humanity of the 
slave, and estimate him as only 
the equal of the hog? Why ask 
us to do what you will not do 
yourselves? Why ask us to do 
for nothing what two hundred 
millions of dollars could not 
induce you to do? 



25 



VII 

THE RIGHT OF SELF- 
GOVERNMENT 

From a speech delivered at Peoria, Illinois, 
Octoberi6, 1854, in reply to Senator Douglas. 

But one great argument in 
support of the repeal of the 
Missouri Compromise is still to 
come. That argument is " the 
sacred right of self-govern- 
ment." It seems our distin- 
guished senator has found great 
difficulty in getting his antag- 
onists, even in the Senate, to 
meet him fairly on this argu- 
ment. Some poet has said : 

Fools rush in where angels fear to 
tread. 

At the hazard of being thought 
one of the fools of this quota- 

26 



tion, I meet that argument — I 
rush m — I take that bull by the 
horns. I trust I understand 
and truly estimate the right of 
self-government. My faith in 
the proposition that each man 
should do precisely as he 
pleases with all which is ex- 
clusively his own lies at the 
foundation of the sense of jus- 
tice there is in me. 

I extend the principle to 
communities of men as well as 
to individuals. I so extend it 
because it is politically wise as 
well as naturally just : politi- 
cally wise in saving us from 
broils about matters which do 
not concern us. Here, or at 
Washington, I would not trou- 
ble myself with the oyster laws 
of Virginia, or the cranberry 
laws of Indiana. 

The doctrine of self-govern- 
ment is right, — absolutely and 
eternally right, — but it has no 

■27 



just application as here at- 
tempted. Or perhaps I should 
rather say that whether it has 
such apphcation depends upon 
whether a negro is not or is a 
man. If he is not a man, in 
that case he who is a man may, 
as a matter of self-government, 
do just what he pleases with 
him. But if the negro is a 
man, is it not to that extent a 
total destruction of self-govern- 
ment to say that he too shall 
not govern himself? When the 
white man governs himself, 
that is self-government ; but 
when he governs himself and 
also governs another man, that 
is more than self-government — 
that is despotism. If the negro 
is a man, why then my ancient 
faith teaches me that " all men 
are created equal," and that 
there can be no moral right in 
connection with one man's mak- 
ing a slave of another. 

28 



Judge Douglas frequently, 
with bitter irony and sarcasm, 
paraphrases our argument by 
saying : " The white people of 
Nebraska are good enough to 
govern themselves, but they 
are not good enough to govern 
a few miserable negroes! " 

Well! I doubt not that the 
people of Nebraska are and 
will continue to be as good as 
the average of people else- 
where. I do not say the con- 
trary. What I do say is that 
no man is good enough to gov- 
ern another man without that 
other's consent. I say this is 
the leading principle, the sheet- 
anchor, of American republi- 
canism. 



29 



VIII 

MEANING OF THE DECLARA- 
TION OF INDEPENDENCE 

From a speech delivered at Springfield, Illi- 
nois, June 26, 1857. 

Chief Justice Taney, in his 
opinion in the Dred Scott case, 
admits that the language of the 
Declaration is broad enough 
to include the whole human 
family, but he and Judge 
Douglas argue that the authors 
of that instrument did not 
intend to include negroes, by 
the fact that they did not at 
once actually place them on an 
equality with the whites. 

Now this grave argument 
comes to just nothing at all, by 
the other fact that they did not 

30 



at once, or ever afterward, actu- 
ally place all white people on 
an equality with one another. 
And this is the staple argument 
of both the chief justice and 
the senator for doing this ob- 
vious violence to the plain, 
unmistakable language of the 
Declaration! 

I think the authors of that 
notable instrument intended to 
include all men, but they did 
not intend to declare all men 
equal In all respects. They did 
not mean to say all were equal 
in color, size, intellect, moral 
developments, or social capa- 
city. They defined with toler- 
able distinctness in what re- 
spects they did consider all 
men created equal — equal with 
'* certain inalienable rights, 
among which are life, liberty, 
and the pursuit of happiness." 
This they said, and this they 
meant. They did not mean to 

31 



assert the obvious untruth that 
all were then actually enjoying 
that equality, nor yet that they' 
were about to confer it immedi- 
ately upon them. In fact, they 
had no power to confer such a 
boon. They meant simply to 
declare the right, so that en- 
forcement of it might follow as 
fast as circumstances should 
permit. 

They meant to set up a stan- 
dard maxim for free society, 
which should be familiar to all, 
and revered by all ; constantly 
looked to, constantly labored 
for, and even though never 
perfectly attained, constantly 
approximated, and thereby 
constantly spreading and deep- 
ening its influence and aug- 
menting the happiness and 
value of life to all people of all 
colors everywhere. 

The assertion that " all men 
are created equal " was of no 

32 



practical use in effecting our 
separation from Great Britain ; 
and it was placed in the Dec- 
laration not for that, but for 
future use. Its authors meant 
it to be — as, thank God, it is 
now -proving itself — a stum- 
bling-block to all those who in 
after times might seek to turn 
a free people back into the 
hateful paths of despotism. 
They knew the proneness of 
prosperity to breed tyrants, and 
they meant when such should 
reappear in this fair land and 
commence their vocation, they 
should find left for them at 
least one hard nut to crack. 



33 



IX 



A HOUSE DIVIDED AGAINSJ 
ITSELF CANNOT STAND " f^ 



From a speech delivered June i6, 1858, (" 
Springfield, Illinois, at the close of the Rj. 
publican State Convention by which Linco- ' 
had been named as its candidate for Unitfr 
States senator. ?v 

If we could first know wherf 
we are, and whither we art* 
tending, we could better judge 
what to do, and how to do it- 
We are now far into the fifth 
year since a policy was initiated 
with the avowed object and 
confident promise of putting an, 
end to slavery agitation. Un- 
der the operation of that pol- 
icy, that agitation has not only 
not ceased, but has constantly 
augmented. In my opinion, it 
34 



will not cease until a crisis 
shall have been reached and 
passed. " A house divided 
against itself cannot stand." 
I believe this government can- 
not endure permanently half 
slave ^nd half free. 

I do not expect the Union 
.0 be dissolved — I do not ex- 
ect the house to fall — but I 
lo expect it will cease to be 
livided. It will become all 
)ne thing, or all the other. 
Either the opponents of slav- 
ery will arrest the further spread 
of it, and place it where the 
public mind shall rest in the 
belief that it is in the course of 
ultimate extinction ; or its ad- 
vocates will push it forward till 
it shall become alike lawful in 
all the States, old as well as 
new, North as well as South. 



35 



X 



RESISTANCE TO THE SUP*IEME 
COURT 

From a speech delivered at Chicago, IIH- 
nois, July lo, 1858. 

I HAVE expressed heretofore, 
and I now repeat, my opposi- 
tion to the Dred Scott deci- 
sion ; but I should be allowed 
to state the nature of that op- 
position, and I ask your indul- 
gence while I do so. 

What is fairly implied by 
the term Judge Douglas has 
used, "resistance to the deci- 
sion"? I do not resist it. If 
I wanted to take Dred Scott 
from his master, I would be 
interfering with property, and 
that terrible difficulty that 

36 



Judge Douglas speaks of, of 
interfering with property, would 
arise. But I am doing no such 
thing as that ; all that I am 
doing is refusing to obey it as 
a political rule. If I were in 
Congress, and a vote should 
come up on a question whe- 
ther slavery should be pro- 
hibited in a new Territory, in 
spite of the Dred Scott deci- 
sion, I would vote that it 
should. 

That is what I would do. 
Judge Douglas said last night 
that before the decision he 
might advance his opinion, and 
it might be contrary to the de- 
cision when it was made ; but 
after it was made he would 
abide by it until it was re- 
versed. Just so! We let this 
property abide by the decision, 
but we will try to reverse that 
decision. We will try to put it 
where Judge Douglas would 

37 



not object, for he says he will 
obey it until it is reversed. 
Somebody has to reverse that 
decision, since it is made ; and 
we mean to reverse it, and we 
mean to do it peaceably. 

What are the uses of deci- 
sions of courts? They have 
two uses. As rules of prop- 
erty they have two uses. First 
— they decide upon the ques- 
tion before the court. They 
decide in this case that Dred 
Scott is a slave. Nobody 
resists that. Not only that, 
but they say to everybody else 
that persons standing just as 
Dred Scott stands are as he is. 
That is, they say that when a 
question comes up upon an- 
other person, it will be so de- 
cided again, unless the court 
decides in another way, unless 
the court overrules its decision. 
Well, we mean to do what we 
can to have the court decide 

38 



the other way. That is one 
thing we mean to try to do. 

The sacredness that Judge 
Douglas throws around this 
decision is a degree of sacred- 
ness that has never been before 
thrown around any other de- 
cision. I have never heard of 
such a thing. Why, decisions 
apparently contrary to that de- 
cision, or that good lawyers 
thought were contrary to that 
decision, have been made by 
that very court before. It is 
the first of its kind ; it is an 
astonisher in legal history. It 
is a new wonder of the world. 
It is based upon falsehood in 
the main as to the facts — alle- 
gations of facts upon which it 
stands are not facts at all in 
many instances ; and no deci- 
sion made on any question — 
the first instance of a decision 
made under so many unfav- 
orable circumstances — thus 

39 



placed has ever been held by 
the profession as law, and it 
has always needed confirmation 
before the lawyers regarded it 
as settled law. 

But Judge Douglas will have 
it that all hands must take this 
extraordinary decision, made 
under these extraordinary cir- 
cumstances, and give their vote 
in Congress in accordance with 
it, yield to it and obey it in 
every possible sense. Circum- 
stances alter cases. Do not gen- 
tlemen here remember the case 
of that same Supreme Court, 
some twenty- five or thirty years 
ago, deciding that a national 
bank was constitutional? I 
ask if somebody does not re- 
member that a national bank 
was declared to be constitu- 
tional? Such is the truth, 
whether it be remembered or 
not. The bank charter ran 
out, and a recharter was 

40 



granted by Congress. That 
recharter was laid before Gen- 
eral Jackson. It was urged 
upon him, when he denied the 
constitutionality of the bank, 
that the Supreme Court had 
decided that it was constitu- 
tional ; and General Jackson 
then said that the Supreme 
Court had no right to lay down 
a rule to govern a coordinate 
branch of the government, the 
members of which had sworn to 
support the Constitution — that 
each member had sworn to sup- 
port that Constitution as he 
understood it. I will venture 
here to say that I have heard 
Judge Douglas say that he ap- 
proved of General Jackson for 
that act. What has now be- 
come of all his tirade against 
" resistance to the Supreme 
Court"? 



41 



XI 

REPEAL OF THE MISSOURI 
COMPROMISE 

From Lincoln's reply to Douglas in the 
joint debate at Jonesboro, Illinois, Septem- 
ber 15, 1858. 

The judge has gone over a 
long account of the Old Whig 
and Democratic parties, and it 
connects itself with this charge 
against Trumbull and myself. 

He says that they agreed 
upon a compromise in regard 
to the slavery question in 1850 ; 
that in a national Democratic 
convention resolutions were 
passed to abide by that com- 
promise as a finality upon the 
slavery question. He also says 
that the Whig party in national 
convention agreed to abide by 

42 



and regard as a finality the 
compromise of 1850: I un- 
derstand the judge to be ako- 
gether right about that ; I un- 
derstand that part of the history 
of the country as stated by him 
to be correct. I recollect that 
I, as a member of that party, 
acquiesced in that compromise. 
I recollect in the Presidential 
election which followed, when 
we had General Scott up for 
the Presidency, Judge Douglas 
was around berating us Whigs 
as abolitionists, precisely as he 
does to-day — not a bit of dif- 
ference. I have often heard 
him. We could do nothing 
when the Old Whig party was 
alive that was not abolitionism, 
but it has got an extremely good 
name since it has passed away. 
When that compromise was 
made, it did not repeal the old 
Missouri Compromise. It left 
a region of United States ter- 
43 



ritory half as large as the pres- 
ent territory of the United 
States, north of the hne of 360 
30', in which slavery was pro- 
hibited by act of Congress. 
This compromise did not re- 
peal that one. It did not 
affect or propose to repeal it. 
But at last it became Judge 
Douglas's duty, as he thought 
(and I find no fault with him), 
as chairman of the Committee 
on Territories, to bring in a 
bill for the organization of a 
territorial government — first of 
one, then of two Territories 
north of that line. When he 
did so it ended in his inserting 
a provision substantially repeal- 
ing the Missouri Compromise. 
That was because the com.- 
promise of 1850 had not 
repealed it. 

And now I ask why he could 
not have left that compromise 
alone. We were quiet from 



the agitation of the slavery 
question. We were making 
no fuss about it. All had ac- 
quiesced in the compromise 
measures of 1850. We never 
had been seriously disturbed 
by any abolition agitation be- 
fore that period. When he 
came to form governments for 
the Territories north of the line 
of 36*^ 30', why could he not 
have let that matter stand as it 
was standing? Was it neces- 
sary to the organization of a 
Territory? Not at all. Iowa 
lay north of the line, and had 
been organized as a Territory, 
and came into the Union as a 
State without disturbing that 
compromise. There was no 
sort of necessity for destroying 
it to organize these Territories. 
But, gentlemen, it would take 
up all my time to meet all the 
little quibbling arguments of 
Judge Douglas to show that 
45 



the Missouri Compromise was 
repealed by the compromise of 
1 850. My own opinion is that 
a careful investigation of all 
the arguments to sustain the 
position that that compromise 
was virtually repealed by the 
compromise of 1850 would 
show that they are the merest 
fallacies. I have the report 
that Judge Douglas first 
brought into Congress at the 
time of the introduction of the 
Nebraska Bill, which in its 
original form did not repeal 
the Missouri Compromise, and 
he there expressly stated that 
he had forborne to do so be- 
cause it had not been done by 
the compromise of 1850. 

I close this part of the dis- 
cussion on my part by asking 
him the question again, " Why, 
when we had peace under the 
Missouri Compromise, could 
you not have let it alone? " 

46 



XII 

NOTES FOR SPEECHES 

Written about October i, 1858. 

Suppose it is true that the 
negro is inferior to the white in 
the gifts of nature ; is it not 
the exact reverse of justice that 
the white should for that rea- 
son take from the negro any 
part of the httle which he has 
had given him? " Give to him 
that is needy " is the Christian 
rule of charity ; but " Take 
from him that is needv " is the 
rule of slavery. 

The sum of pro-slavery theol- 
ogy seems to be this : " Slav- 
ery is not universally right, nor 
yet universally wrong ; it is bet- 

47 



ter for some people to be 
slaves ; and, in such cases, it is 
the will of God that they be 
such." 

Certainly there is no con- 
tending against the will of God ; 
but still there is some difficulty 
in ascertaining and applying it 
to particular cases. For in- 
stance, we will suppose the 
Rev. Dr. Ross has a slave 
named Sambo, and the ques- 
tion is, " Is it the will of God 
that Sambo shall remain a slave, 
or be set free?" The Al- 
mighty gives no audible answer 
to the question, and his revela- 
tion, the Bible, gives none — or 
at most none but such as ad- 
mits of a squabble as to its 
meaning ; no one thinks of ask- 
ing Sambo's opinion on it. So 
at last it comes to this, that Dr. 
Ross is to decide the question ; 
and while he considers it, he 
sits in the shade, with gloves on 

48 



his hands, and subsists on the 
bread that Sambo is earning in 
the burning sun. If he decides 
that God wills Sambo to con- 
tinue a slave, he thereby retains 
his own comfortable position ; 
but if he decides that God wills 
Sambo to be free, he thereby 
has to walk out of the shade, 
throw off his gloves, and delve 
for his own bread. Will Dr. 
Ross be actuated by the perfect 
impartiality which has ever 
been considered most favorable 
to correct decisions? 



49 



XIII 

THE NEGRO INCLUDED IN THE 
DECLARATION OF IN- 
DEPENDENCE 

From Lincoln's reply to Douglas in the 
Galesburg joint debate, October 7, 1858. 

The judge has alluded to the 
Declaration of Independence, 
and insisted that negroes are 
not included in that Declara- 
tion, and that it is a slander 
upon the framers of that instru- 
ment to suppose that negroes 
were meant therein ; and he 
asks you : Is it possible to be- 
lieve that Mr. Jefferson, who 
penned the immortal paper, 
could have supposed himself 
applying the language of that 
instrument to the negro race, 

50 



and yet held a portion of that 
race in slavery? Would he 
not at once have freed them? 
I only have to remark upon 
this part of the judge's speech 
(and that, too, very briefly, for 
I shall not detain myself, or 
you, upon that point for any 
great length of time), that I be- 
lieve the entire records of the 
world, from the date of the 
Declaration of Independence 
up to within three years ago, 
may be searched in vain for 
one single affirmation, from one 
single man, that the negro was 
not included in the Declaration 
of Independence. I think I 
may defy Judge Douglas to 
show that he ever said so, that 
Washington ever said so, that 
any President ever said so, that 
any member of Congress ever 
said so, or that any living man 
upon the whole earth ever said 
so, until the necessities of the 

51 



present policy of the Demo- 
cratic party, in regard to slav- 
ery, had to invent that affirma- 
tion. 

And I will remind Judge 
Douglas and this audience that 
while Mr. Jefferson was the 
owner of slaves, as undoubtedly 
he was, in speaking upon this 
very subject, he used the strong 
language that " he trembled for 
his country when he remem- 
bered that God was just " ; and 
I will offer the highest premium 
in my power to Judge Douglas 
if he will show that he, in all 
his life, ever uttered a sentiment 
at all akin to that of Jefferson. 



52 



XIV 

THE DRED SCOTT DECISION 

From Lincoln's reply to Douglas in the 
Galesburg joint debate, October 7, 1858. 

The essence of the Dred Scott 
case is compressed into the 
sentence which I will now read : 
" Now, as we have already said 
in an earlier part of this opin- 
ion, upon a different point, the 
right of property in a slave is 
distinctly and expressly affirmed 
in the Constitution." I repeat 
it, " the right of property in a 
slave is distinctly and expressly 
affirmed in the Constitution"! 
What is it to be " affirmed " in 
the Constitution? Made firm 
in the Constitution — so made 
that it cannot be separated 
from the Constitution without 

53 



breaking the Constitution — 
durable as the Constitution, 
and part of the Constitution? 
Now, remembering the provi- 
sion of the Constitution which 
I have read, affirming that that 
instrument is the supreme law 
of the land ; that the judges of 
every State shall be bound by 
it, any law or constitution of 
any State to the contrary not- 
withstanding ; that the right of 
property in a slave is affirmed 
in that Constitution, is made, 
formed into, and cannot be 
separated from it without 
breaking it — durable as the in- 
strument, part of the instru- 
ment, — what follows as a short 
and even syllogistic argument 
from it? I think it follows — 
and I submit to the considera- 
tion of men capable of arguing, 
whether as I state it, in syllo- 
gistic form, the argument has 
any fault in it : 

54 



Nothing in the constitution 
or laws of any State can de- 
stroy a right distinctly and ex- 
pressly affirmed in the Consti- 
tution of the United States. 

The right of property in a 
slave is distinctly and expressly 
affirmed in the Constitution of 
the United States. 

Therefore nothing in the 
constitution or laws of any 
State can destroy the right of 
property in a slave. 

1 believe that no fault can be 
pointed out in that argument ; 
assuming the truth of the prem- 
ises, the conclusion, so far as I 
have capacity at all to under- 
stand it, follows inevitably. 
There is a fault in it, as I think, 
but the fault is not in the rea- 
soning ; the falsehood, in fact, 
is a fault in the premises. I 
believe that the right of prop- 
erty in a slave is not distinctly 
and expressly affirmed in the 

55 



Coiistitution, and Judge Doug- 
las thinks it is. I believe that 
the Supreme Court and the 
advocates of that decision may 
search in vain for the place in 
the Constitution where the right 
of property in a slave is dis- 
tinctly and expressly affirmed. 
I say, therefore, that I think 
one of the premises is not true 
in fact. But it is true with 
Judge Douglas. It is true with 
the Supreme Court who pro- 
nounced it. They are estopped 
from denying it, and being es- 
topped from denying it, the con- 
clusion follows that, the Con- 
stitution of the United States 
being the supreme law, no con- 
stitution or law can interfere 
with it. It being affirmed m 
the decision that the right of 
property in a slave is distinctly 
and expressly affirmed in the 
Constitution, the conclusion in- 
evitably follows that no State 

56 



law or constitution can destroy 
that right. I then say to Judge 
Douglas, and to all others, that 
I think it will take a better an- 
swer than a sneer to show that 
those who have said that the 
right of property in a slave is 
distinctly and expressly affirmed 
in the Constitution are not pre- 
pared to show that no constitu- 
tion or law can destroy that 
right. I say I believe it will 
take a far better argument than 
a mere sneer to show to the 
minds of inteUigent men that 
whoever has so said is not pre- 
pared, whenever public senti- 
ment is so far advanced as to 
justify it, to say the other. 



57 



XV 

THE WRONG OF SLAVERY 

From Lincoln's opening speech in the de- 
bate with Douglas at Quincy, Illinois, Oc- 
tober 13, 1858. 

We have in this nation the ele- 
ment of domestic slavery. It 
is a matter of absolute certainty 
that it is a disturbing element. 
It is the opinion of all the great 
men who have expressed an 
opinion upon it, that it is a dan- 
gerous element. We keep up 
a controversy in regard to it. 
That controversy necessarily 
springs from difference of opin- 
ion, and if we can learn exactly 
— can reduce to the lowest ele- 
ments — what that difference of 
opinion is, we perhaps shall be 
better prepared for discussing 

58 



the different systems of policy 
that we would propose in re- 
gard to that disturbing element. 

I suggest that the difference 
of opinion, reduced to its low- 
est terms, is no other than the 
difference between the men 
who think slavery a wrong and 
those who do not think it 
wrong. The Republican party 
think it wrong — we think it is a 
moral, a social, and a political 
wrong. We think it is a wrong 
not confining itself merely to 
the persons or the States where 
it exists, but that it is a wrong 
which in its tendency, to say 
the least, affects the existence 
of the whole nation. Because 
we think it wrong, we propose 
a course of policy that shall 
deal with it as a wrong. 

We deal with it as with any 
other wrong, in so far as we 
can prevent its growing any 
larger, and so deal with it that 

69 



in the run of time there may be 
some promise of an end to it. 
We have a due regard to the 
actual presence of it amongst 
us, and the difficulties of get- 
ting rid of it in any satisfactory 
way, and all the constitutional 
obligations thrown about it. I 
suppose that in reference both 
to its actual existence in the 
nation, and to our constitu- 
tional obligations, we have no 
right at all to disturb it in the 
States where it exists, and we 
profess that we have no more 
inclination to disturb it than we 
have the right to do it. We go 
further than that : we don't pro- 
pose to disturb it where, in one 
instance, we think the Constitu- 
tion would permit us. We think 
the Constitution would permit 
us to disturb it in the District of 
Columbia. Still we do not pro- 
pose to do that, unless it should 
be in terms which I don't sup- 

60 



pose the nation is very likel\' 
soon to agree to — the terms of 
making the emancipation grad- 
ual and compensating the un- 
wilhng owners. AVhere we 
suppose we have the constitu- 
tional right, we restrain our- 
selves in reference to the actual 
existence of the institution and 
the difficulties thrown about it. 
We also oppose it as an evil so 
far as it seeks to spread itself. 
We insist on the policy that 
shall restrict it to its present 
limits. We don't suppose that 
in doing this we violate any- 
thing due to the actual presence 
of the institution, or anything 
due to the constitutional guar- 
anties thrown around it. 

We oppose the Dred Scott 
decision in a certain w^ay, upon 
which I ought perhaps to ad- 
dress you in a few words. 
We do not propose that \vhen 
Dred Scott has been decided to 

61 



be a slave by the court, we, as 
a mob, will decide him to be 
free. We do not propose that, 
when any other one, or one 
thousand, shall be decided by 
that court to be slaves, we will 
in any violent way disturb the 
rights of property thus settled ; 
but we nevertheless do oppose 
that decision as a political rule, 
which shall be binding on the 
voter to vote for nobody who 
thinks it wrong, which shall be 
binding on the members of 
Congress or the President to 
favor no measure that does not 
actually concur with the prin- 
ciples of that decision. We do 
not propose to be bound by it 
as a political rule in that way, 
because we think it lays the 
foundation not merely of en- 
larging and spreading out what 
we consider an evil, but it lays 
the foundation for spreading 
that evil into the States them- 

62 



selves. We propose so resist- 
ing it as to have it reversed if 
we can, and a new judicial rule 
established upon this subject. 
I will add this, that if there 
be any man who does not be- 
lieve that slavery is wrong in 
the three aspects which I have 
mentioned, or in any one of 
them, that man is misplaced 
and ought to leave us. While, 
on the other hand, if there be 
any man in the Republican 
party who is impatient over the 
necessity springing from its 
actual presence, and is impa- 
tient of the constitutional guar- 
anties thrown around it, and 
would act in disregard of these, 
he too is misplaced, standing 
with us. He will find his place 
somewhere else , for we have a 
due regard, so far as we are 
capable of understanding them, 
for all these things. This, gen- 
tlemen, as well as I can give it, 

63 



is a plain statement of our prin- 
ciples in all their enormity. 

I will say now that there is 
a sentiment in the country con- 
trary to me — a sentiment which 
holds that slavery is not wrong, 
and therefore goes for the pol- 
icy that does not propose deal- 
ing with it as a wrong. That 
policy is the Democratic pol- 
icy, and that sentiment is the 
Democratic sentiment. If 
there be a doubt in the mind 
of any one of this vast audi- 
ence that this is really the cen- 
tral idea of the Democratic 
party, in relation to this sub- 
ject, I ask him to bear with me 
while I state a few things tend- 
ing, as I think, to prove that 
proposition. 

In the first place, the lead- 
ing man, — I think I may do my 
friend Judge Douglas the honor 
of caUing him such, — advo- 
cating the present Democratic 

64 



policy, never himself says it is 
wrong. He has the high dis- 
tinction, so far as I know, of 
never having said slavery is 
either right or wrong. Almost 
everybody else says one or the 
other, but the Judge never does. 
If there be a man in the Demo- 
cratic party who thinks it is 
wrong, and yet clings to that 
party, I suggest to him in the 
lirst place that his leader don't 
talk as he does, for he never 
says that it is wrong. 

In the second place, I sug- 
gest to him that if he will ex- 
amine the policy proposed to 
be carried forward, he will find 
that he carefully excludes the 
idea that there is anything 
wrong in it. If you will ex- 
amine the arguments that are 
made on it, you will find that 
every one carefully excludes 
the idea that there is anything 
wrong in slavery. 

* 65 



Perhaps that Democrat who 
says he is as much opposed to 
slavery as I am will tell me 
that I am wrong about this. 
I wish him to examine his own 
course in regard to this matter 
a moment, and then see if his 
opinion will not be changed a 
little. You say it is wrong ; 
but don't you constantly object 
to anybody else saying so? Do 
you not constantly argue that 
this is not the right place to op- 
pose it ? You say it must not be 
opposed in the free States, be- 
cause slavery is not there ; it 
must not be opposed in the slave 
States, because it is there ; it 
must not be opposed in poHtics, 
because that will make a fuss ; 
it must not be opposed in the 
pulpit, because it is not re- 
ligion. Then where is the 
place to oppose it? There is 
no suitable place to oppose it. 
There is no plan in the country 

66 



to oppose this evil overspread- 
ing the continent, which you 
say yourself is coming. Frank 
Blair and Gratz Brown tried to 
get up a system of gradual 
emancipation in Missouri, had 
an election in August, and got 
beat ; and you, Mr. Democrat, 
threw up your hat and hal- 
looed, " Hurrah for Democ- 
racy! " 

So I say again, that in re- 
gard to the arguments that are 
made, when Judge Douglas 
says he " don't care whether 
slavery is voted up or voted 
down," whether he means that 
as an individual expression of 
sentiment, or only as a sort of 
statement of his views on na- 
tional policy, it is alike true to 
say that he can thus argue 
logically if he don't see any- 
thing wrong in it ; but he can- 
not say so logically if he ad- 
mits that slavery is wrong. 

67 



He cannot say that he would 
as soon see a wrong voted up 
as voted down. When Judge 
Douglas says that whoever or 
whatever community wants 
slaves, they have a right to have 
them, he is perfectly logical if 
there is nothing wrong in the 
institution ; but if you admit 
that it is wrong, he cannot 
logically say that anybody has 
a right to do wrong. When 
he says that slave property and 
horse and hog property are 
ahke to be allowed to go into 
the Territories, upon the prin- 
ciples of equality, he is reason- 
ing truly if there is no differ- 
ence between them as property ; 
but if the one is property, 
held rightfully, and the other 
is wrong, then there is no 
equality between the right and 
wrong ; so that, turn it in any 
way you can, in all the argu- 
ments sustaining the Demo- 

68 



cratic policy, and in that policy 
itself, there is a careful, studied 
exclusion of the idea that there 
is anything wrong in slavery. 

Let us understand this. I 
am not, just here, trying to 
prove that we are right and 
they are wrong. I have been 
stating where we and they 
stand, and trying to show what 
is the real difference between 
us ; and I now say that when- 
ever we can get the question 
distinctly stated, — can get all 
these men who believe that 
slavery is in some of these re- 
spects wrong, to stand and act 
with us in treating it as a 
wrong, — then, and not till then, 
I think, will we in some way 
come to an end of this slavery 
agitation. 



69 



XVI 

THE PRINCIPLES OF 
JEFFERSON 

From a letter to H. L. Pierce and others, 
dated April 6, 1859. 

I REMEMBER being once much 
amused at seeing two partially 
intoxicated men engaged in a 
fight with their greatcoats on, 
which fight, after a long and 
rather harmless contest, ended 
in each having fought himself 
out of his own coat and into 
that of the other. If the two 
leading parties of this day are 
really identical with the two in 
the days of Jefferson and 
Adams, they have performed 
the same feat as the two 
drunken men. 

70 



But, soberly, it is now no 
child's play to save the prin- 
ciples of Jefferson from total 
overthrow in this nation. One 
would state with great confi- 
dence that he could convince 
any sane child that the simpler 
propositions of Euclid are true ; 
but nevertheless he would fail 
utterly with one who should 
deny the definitions and axi- 
oms. 

The principles of Jefferson 
are the definitions and axioms 
of free society. And yet they 
are denied and evaded, with 
no small show of success. One 
dashingly calls them " glitter- 
ing generalities." Another 
bluntly calls them " self-evi- 
dent Hes." And others insidi- 
ously argue that they apply to 
"superior races." These ex- 
pressions, differing in form, are 
identical in object and effect — 
the supplanting the principles 

71 



of free government, and restor- 
ing those of classification, caste, 
and legitimacy. They would 
dehght a convocation of 
crowned heads plotting against 
the people. They are the van- 
guard, the miners and sappers, 
of returning despotism. We 
must repulse them, or they will 
subjugate us. This is a world 
of compensation ; and he who 
would be no slave must consent 
to have no slave. Those who 
deny freedom to others de- 
serve it not for themselves, and, 
under a just God, cannot long 
retain it. 

All honor to Jefferson — to 
the man who, in the concrete 
pressure of a struggle for na- 
tional independence by a single 
people, had the coolness, fore- 
cast, and capacity to introduce 
into a merely revolutionary 
document an abstract truth, 
applicable to all men and all 

72 



times, and so to embalm it 
there that to-day and in ail 
coming days it shall be a re- 
buke and a stumbling-block to 
the very harbingers of reap- 
pearing tyranny and oppres- 
sion. 



73 



XVII 

A LOOK INTO THE FUTURE 

From a speech delivered at Cincinnati, Ohio, 
September 17, 1859. 

We know that '' you are all of 
a feather," and that we have to 
beat you all together, and we 
expect to do it. We don't 
intend to be very impatient 
about it. We mean to be as 
deliberate and calm about it as 
it is possible to be, but as firm 
and resolved as it is possible 
for men to be. When we do 
as we say, beat you, you per- 
haps want to know what we 
will do with you. 

I will tell you, so far as I 
am authorized to speak for 
the opposition, what we mean 
74 



to do with you. We mean 
to treat you, as near as we 
possibly can, as Washington, 
Jefferson, and Madison treated 
you. We mean to leave you 
alone, and in no way to inter- 
fere with your institution ; to 
abide by all and every com- 
promise of the Constitution, 
and, in a word, coming back to 
the original proposition, to treat 
you, so far as degenerated men 
(if we have degenerated) may, 
according to the example of 
those noble fathers — Washing- 
ton, Jefferson, and Madison. 
We mean to remember that 
you are as good as we ; that 
there is no difference between 
us other than the difference of 
circumstances. We mean to 
recognize and bear in mind 
always that you have as good 
hearts in your bosoms as other 
people, or as we claim to have, 
and treat you accordingly. We 

75 



mean to marr}^ your girls when 
we have a chance — the white 
ones, I mean, and I have the 
honor to inform you that I 
once did have a chance in that 
way. 

I have told you what vvX 
mean to do. I want to know, 
now, when that thing takes 
place, what do you mean to 
do? I often hear it intimated 
that you mean to divide the 
Union whenever a Republican 
or anything like it is elected 
President of the United States. 
[A voice: "That is so."] 
" That is so," one of them says ; 
I wonder if he is a Kentuck- 
ian? [A voice: "He is a 
Douglas man."] Well, then, I 
want to know what you are 
going to do with your half of 
it. Are you going to split the 
Ohio down through, and push 
your half off a piece? Or are 
you going to keep it right 

76 



alongside of us outrageous fel- 
lows? Or are you going to 
build up a wall some way be- 
tween your country and ours, 
by which that movable prop- 
erty of yours can't come over 
here any more, to the danger 
of your losing it? Do you 
think you can better yourselves 
on that subject by leaving us 
here under no obligation what- 
ever to return those specimens 
of your movable property that 
come hither? 

You have divided the Union 
because we would not do right 
with you, as you think, upon 
that subject ; when we cease to 
be under obligations to do any- 
thing for you, how much bet- 
ter off do you think you will 
be? Will you make war upon 
us and kill us all? Why, gen- 
tlemen, I think you are as gal- 
lant and as brave men as live ; 
that you can fight as bravely in 

77 



a good cause, man for man, as 
any other people living ; that 
you have shown yourselves 
capable of this upon various 
occasions ; but man for man, 
you are not better than we are, 
and there are not so many of 
you as there are of us. You 
will never make much of a hand 
at whipping us. If we were 
fewer in numbers than you, I 
think that you could whip us ; 
if we were equal it would likely 
be a drawn battle ; but being 
inferior in numbers, you will 
make nothing by attempting to 
master us. 



78 



XVIII 

AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL 

From a letter to J. W. Fell, dated De- 
cember 20, 1859. 

I WAS born February 12, 1809, 
in Hardin County, Kentucky. 
My parents were both born in 
Virginia, of undistinguished 
famihes — second famiHes, per- 
haps I should say. My mother, 
who died in my tenth year, was 
of a family of the name of 
Hanks, some of whom now re- 
side in Adams, and others in 
Macon County, Illinois. My 
paternal grandfather, Abraham 
Lincoln, emigrated from Rock- 
ingham County, Virginia, to 
Kentucky about 1781 or 1782, 
where a year or two later he was 

79 



killed by the Indians, not in 
battle, but by stealth, when he 
was laboring to open a farm in 
the forest. His ancestors, who 
were Quakers, went to Virginia 
from Berks County, Pennsyl- 
vania. An effort to identify 
them with the New England 
family of the same name ended 
in nothing more definite than 
a similarity of Christian names 
in both families, such as Enoch, 
Levi, Mordecai, Solomon, 
Abraham, and the like. 

My father, at the death of 
his father, was but six years of 
age, and he grew up literally 
without education. He re- 
moved from Kentucky to 
what is now Spencer County, 
Indiana, in my eighth year. 
We reached our new home 
about the time the State came 
into the Union. It was a wild 
region, with many bears and 
other wild animals still in the 



80 



woods. There I grew up. 
There were some schools, so 
called, but no qualification was 
ever required of a teacher be- 
yond "readin', writin', and 
cipherin' " to the rule of three. 
If a straggler supposed to un- 
derstand Latin happened to 
sojourn in the neighborhood, he 
was looked upon as a wizard. 
There was absolutely nothing 
to excite ambition for educa- 
tion. Of course, when I came 
of age I did not know much. 
Still, somehow, I could read, 
write, and cipher to the rule of 
three, but that was all. I have 
not been to school since. The 
little advance I now have upon 
this store of education I have 
picked up from time to time 
under the pressure of necessity. 
I was raised to farm work, 
which I continued till I was 
twenty-two. At twenty-one I 
came to Illinois, Macon County. 

« 81 



Then I got to New Salem, at 
that time in Sangamon, now in 
Menard County, where I re- 
mained a year as a sort of clerk 
in a store. 

Then came the Black Hawk 
War ; and I was elected a cap- 
tain of volunteers, a success 
which gave me more pleasure 
than any I have had since. I 
went the campaign, was elated, 
ran for the legislature the same 
year (1832), and was beaten — 
the only time I ever have been 
beaten by the people. The 
next and three succeeding bien- 
nial elections I was elected to 
the legislature. I was not a 
candidate afterward. During 
this legislative period I had 
studied law, and removed to 
Springfield to practise it. In 
1846 I was once elected to the 
lower House of Congress. 
Was not a candidate for re- 
election. From 1849 to 1854, 

82 



both inclusive, practised law 
more assiduously than ever be- 
fore. Always a Whig in poli- 
tics ; and generally on the Whig 
electoral tickets, making active 
canvasses. I was losing inter- 
est in pohtics when the repeal 
of the Missouri Compromise 
aroused me again. What I 
have done since then is pretty 
well known. 

If any personal description 
of me is thought desirable, it 
may be said I am, in height, 
six feet four inches, nearly ; 
lean in flesh, weighing on an 
average one hundred and 
eighty pounds ; dark complex- 
ion, with coarse black hair and 
gray eyes. No other marks or 
brands recollected. 



88 



XIX 

AN APPEAL TO THE SOUTH 

From the address delivered at Cooper In- 
stitute, New York, February 27, i860. 

And now, if they would listen, 

— as I suppose they will not, 

— I would address a few words 
to the Southern people. 

I would say to them : You 
consider yourselves a reason- 
able and a just people ; and I 
consider that in the general 
qualities of reason and justice 
you are not inferior to any 
other people. Still, when you 
speak of us Republicans, you 
do so only to denounce us as 
reptiles, or, at the best, as no 
better than outlaws. You will 
grant a hearing to pirates or 

84 



murderers, but nothing like it 
to " Black Republicans." In 
all your contentions with one 
another, each of you deems an 
unconditional condemnation of 
" Black Republicanism " as the 
first thing to be attended to. 
Indeed, such condemnation of 
us seems to be an indispensa- 
ble prerequisite — license, so to 
speak — among you to be ad- 
mitted or permitted to speak at 
all. Now, can you or not be 
prevailed upon to pause and to 
consider whether this is quite 
just to us, or even to your- 
selves? Bring forward your 
charges and specifications, and 
then be patient long enough to 
hear us deny or justify. 

You say we are sectional. 
We deny it. That makes an 
issue ; and the burden of proof 
is upon you. You produce 
your proof; and what is it? 
Why, that our party has no ex- 

85 



istence in your section — gets no 
votes in your section. The 
fact is substantially true ; but 
does it prove the issue? If it 
does, then, in case we should, 
without change of principle, 
begin to get votes in your sec- 
tion, we should thereby cease 
to be sectional. You cannot 
escape this conclusion ; and 
yet, are you willing to abide by 
it? If you are, you will prob- 
ably soon find that we have 
ceased to be sectional, for we 
shall get votes in your section 
this very year. You will then 
begin to discover, as the truth 
plainly is, that your proof does 
not touch the issue. The fact 
that we get no votes in your 
section is a fact of your mak- 
ing, and not of ours. 

And if there be fault in that 
fact, that fault is primarily 
yours, and remains so until you 
show that we repel you by 

86 



some wrong principle or prac- 
tice. If we do repel you by 
any wrong principle or prac- 
tice, the fault is ours ; but this 
brings you to where you ought 
to have started — to a discus- 
sion of the right or wrong of 
our principle. If our principle, 
put in practice, would wrong 
your section for the benefit of 
ours, or for any other object, 
then our principle, and we with 
it, are sectional, and are justly 
opposed and denounced as 
such. Meet us, then, on the 
question of whether our prin- 
ciple, put in practice, would 
wrong your section ; and so 
meet us as if it were possible 
that something may be said on 
our side. Do you accept the 
challenge? No! Then you 
really believe that the principle 
which " our fathers who framed 
the government under which we 
live " thought so clearly right 

87 



as to adopt it, and 'indorse it 
again and again, upon their 
official oaths, is in fact so 
clearly wrong as to demand 
your condemnation without a 
moment's consideration. 

Some of you delight to flaunt 
in our faces the warning 
against sectional parties given 
by Washington in his Farewell 
Address. Less than eight years 
before Washington gave that 
warning he had, as President 
of the United States, approved 
and signed an act of Congress 
enforcing the prohibition of 
slavery in the Northwestern 
Territory, which act embodied 
the policy of the government 
upon that subject up to and at 
the very moment he penned 
that warning ; and about one 
year after he penned it, he 
wrote Lafayette that he consid- 
ered that prohibition a wise 
measure, expressing in the same 



connection his hope that we 
should at some time have a 
confederacy of free States. 

Bearing this in mind, and 
seeing that sectionahsm has 
since arisen upon this same 
subject, is that warning a 
weapon in your hands against 
us, or in our hands against you? 
Could Washington himself 
speak, would he cast the blame 
of that sectionalism upon us, 
who sustain his policy, or upon 
you, who repudiate it? We 
respect that warning of Wash- 
ington, and we commend it to 
you, together with his example 
pointing to the right applica- 
tion of it. 

But you say you are con- 
servative, — eminently conser- 
vative, — while we are revolu- 
tionary, destructive, or some- 
thing of the sort. • 

What is conservatism? Is 
it not adherence to the old and 

89 



tried, against the new and un- 
tried? We stick to, contend 
for, the identical old pohcy on 
the point in controversy which 
was adopted by " our fathers 
who framed the government 
under which we live " ; while 
you with one accord reject, and 
scout, and spit upon that old 
pohcy, and insist upon substi- 
tuting something new. 

True, you disagree among 
yourselves as to what that sub- 
stitute shall be. You are di- 
vided on new propositions and 
plans, but you are unanimous 
in rejecting and denouncing 
the old policy of the fathers. 
Some of you are for reviving 
the foreign slave-trade ; some 
for a congressional slave code 
for the Territories ; some for 
Congress forbidding the Terri- 
tories to prohibit slavery within 
their limits ; some for maintain- 
ing slavery in the Territories 

90 



through the judiciary ; some for 
the " gur-reat pur-rinciple " that 
" if one man would enslave an- 
other, no third man should 
object," fantastically called 
"popular sovereignty"; but 
never a man among you is in 
favor of Federal prohibition of 
slavery in Federal Territories, 
according to the practice of 
" our fathers who framed the 
government under which we 
live." Not one of all your 
various plans can show a pre- 
cedent or an advocate in the 
century within which our gov- 
ernment originated. 

Consider, then, whether your 
claim for conservatism for 
yourselves, and your charge of 
destructiveness against us, are 
based on the most clear and 
stable foundations. 

Again, you say we have 
made the slavery question more 
prominent than it formerly was. 

91 



We deny it. We admit that it 
is more prominent, but we deny 
that we made it so. It was not 
we, but you, who discarded the 
old pohcy of the fathers. We 
resisted, and still resist, your 
innovation ; and thence comes 
the greater prominence of the 
question. Would you have 
that question reduced to its 
former proportions? Go back 
to that old policy. What has 
been will be again, under the 
same conditions. If you would 
have the peace of the old times, 
readopt the precepts and pol- 
icy of the old times. 

You charge that we stir up 
insurrections among your 
slaves. We deny it ; and what 
is your proof? Harper's Ferry ! 
John Brown! ! John Brown 
was no Republican ; and you 
have failed to implicate a single 
Republican in his Harper's 
Ferry enterprise. If any mem- 

92 



ber of our party is guilty in 
that matter, you know it, or 
you do not know it. If you 
do know it, you are inexcusa- 
ble for not designating the man 
and proving the fact. If you 
do not know it, you are inex- 
cusable for asserting it, and es- 
pecially for persisting in the 
assertion after you have tried 
and failed to make the proof. 
You need not be told that per- 
sisting in a charge which one 
does not know to be true is 
simply malicious slander. 

Some of you admit that no 
Republican designedly aided or 
encouraged the Harper's Ferry 
affair, but still insist that our 
doctrines and declarations ne- 
cessarily lead to such results. 
We do not believe it. We 
know we hold no doctrine, and 
make no declaration, which 
were not held to and made by 
" our fathers who framed the 

93 



government under which we 
live." You never dealt fairly 
by us in relation to this affair. 
When it occurred, some impor- 
tant State elections were near 
at hand, and you were in evi- 
dent glee with the behef that, 
by charging the blame upon 
us, you could get an advantage 
of us in those elections. The 
elections came, and your ex- 
pectations were not quite ful- 
filled. Every Republican man 
knew that, as to himself at least, 
your charge was a slander, and 
he was not much inclined by 
it to cast his vote in your favor. 
Republican doctrines and dec- 
larations are accompanied with 
a continual protest against any 
interference whatever with 
your slaves, or with you about 
your slaves. Surely this does 
not encourage them to revolt. 
True, we do, in common with 
" our fathers who framed the 

94 



government under which we 
hve," declare our behef that 
slavery is wrong ; but the slaves 
do not hear us declare even 
this. For anything we say or 
do, the slaves would scarcely 
know there is a Republican 
party. I believe they would 
not, in fact, generally know it 
but for your misrepresentations 
of us in their hearing. In your 
political contests among your- 
selves, each faction charges 
the other with sympathy with 
Black Republicanism ; and 
then, to give point to the 
charge, defines Black Repub- 
licanism to simply be insur- 
rection, blood, and thunder 
among the slaves. 

Slave insurrections are no 
more common now than they 
were before the RepubHcan 
party was organized. What 
induced the Southampton in- 
surrection, twenty-eight years 

95 



ago, in which at least three 
times as many Uves were lost 
as at Harper's Ferry? You can 
scarcely stretch your very elas- 
tic fancy to the conclusion that 
Southampton was " got up by 
Black Repubhcanism." In the 
present state of things in the 
United States, I do not think 
a general, or even a very ex-' 
tensive, slave insurrection is 
possible. The indispensable 
concert of action cannot be at- 
tained. The slaves have no 
means of rapid communica- 
tion ; nor can incendiary free- 
men, black or white, supply it. 
The explosive materials are 
everywhere in parcels ; but 
there neither are, nor can be 
supplied, the indispensable 
connecting trains. 

Much is said by Southern 
people about the affection of 
slaves for their masters and 
mistresses ; and a part of it, at 

96 



least, is true. A plot for an 
uprising could scarcely be de- 
vised and communicated to 
twenty individuals before some 
one of them, to save the life of 
a favorite master or mistress, 
would divulge it. This is the 
rule ; and the slave revolution 
in Haiti was not an exception 
to it, but a case occurring 
under peculiar circumstances. 
The Gunpowder Plot of British 
history, though not connected 
with slaves, was more in point. 
In that case, only about twenty 
were admitted to the secret ; 
and vet one of them, in his anx- 
iety to save a friend, betrayed 
the plot to that friend, and, by 
consequence, averted the ca- 
lamity. Occasional poisonings 
from the kitchen, and open or 
stealthy assassinations in the 
field, and local revolts extend- 
ing to a score or so, will con- 
tinue to occur as the natural 

7 97 



results of slavery ; but no gen- 
eral insurrection of slaves, as I 
think, can happen in this coun- 
try for a long time. Whoever 
much fears, or much hopes, for 
such an event, will be alike dis- 
appointed. 

In the language of Mr. Jef- 
ferson, uttered many years ago, 
" It is still in our power to di- 
rect the process of emancipa- 
tion and deportation peaceably, 
and in such slow degrees as 
that the evil will wear off in- 
sensibly, and their places be, 
pari passit, filled up by free 
white laborers. If, on the 
contrary, it is left to force itself 
on, human nature must shudder 
at the prospect held up." 

Mr. Jefferson did not mean 
to say, nor do I, that the power 
of emancipation is in the Fed- 
eral Government. He spoke 
of Virginia ; and, as to the 
power of emancipation, I speak 



of the slaveholding States 
only. The Federal Govern- 
ment, however, as we insist, has 
the power of restraining the 
extension of the institution — 
the power to insure that a slave 
insurrection shall never occur 
on any American soil which is 
now free from slavery- 
John Brown's effort was 
peculiar. It was not a slave 
insurrection. It was an at- 
tempt by white men to get up 
a revolt among slaves, in which 
the slaves refused to partici- 
pate. In fact, it was so absurd 
that the slaves, with all their ig- 
norance, saw plainly enough it 
could not succeed. That affair, 
in its philosophy, corresponds 
with the many attempts, related 
in history, at the assassination 
of kings and emperors. An 
enthusiast broods over the op- 
pression of a people till he 
fancies himself commissioned 



99 



L.ofC. 



by Heaven to liberate them. 
He ventures the attempt, which 
ends in httle else than his own 
execution. Orsini's attempt on 
Louis Napoleon, and John 
Brown's attempt at Harper's 
Ferry, were, in their philosophy, 
precisely the same. The ea- 
gerness to cast blame on old 
England in the one case, and 
on New England in the other, 
does not disprove the sameness 
of the two things. 

And how much would it 
avail you if you could, by the 
use of John Brown, Helper's 
book, and the like, break up 
the Republican organization? 
Human action can be modified 
to some extent, but human na- 
ture cannot be changed. There 
is a judgment and a feeling 
against slavery in this nation, 
which cast at least a million 
and a half of votes. You can- 
not destroy that judgment and 

100 



feeling — that sentiment — by- 
breaking up the poHtical organi- 
zation which ralHes around it. 
You can scarcely scatter and 
disperse an army which has 
been formed into order in the 
face of your heaviest fire ; but 
if you could, how much would 
you gain by forcing the senti- 
ment which created it out of the 
peaceful channel of the ballot- 
box into some other channel? 
What would that other channel 
probably be? Would the num- 
ber of John Browns be lessened 
or enlarged by the operation? 

But you will break up the 
Union rather than submit to a 
denial of your constitutional 
rights. 

That has a somewhat reck- 
less sound ; but it would be 
palliated, if not fully justified, 
were we proposing, by the mere 
force of numbers, to deprive you 
of some right plainly written 

101 



down in the Constitution. But 
we are proposing no such thing. 

When you make these dec- 
larations you have a specific 
and well-understood allusion to 
an assumed constitutional right 
of yours to take slaves into the 
Federal Territories, and to hold 
them there as property. But no 
such right is specifically written 
in the Constitution. That in- 
strument is literally silent about 
any such right. We, on the 
contrary, deny that such a right 
has any existence in the Con- 
stitution, even by implication. 

Your purpose, then, plainly 
stated, is that you will destroy 
the government, unless you be 
allowed to construe and force 
the Constitution as you please, 
on all points in dispute between 
you and us. You will rule or 
ruin in all events. 

This, plainly stated, is your 
language. Perhaps you will 

102 



say the Supreme Court has de- 
cided the disputed constitu- 
tional question in your favor. 
Not quite so. But waiving the 
lawyer's distinction between 
dictum and decision, the court 
has decided the question for 
you in a sort of way. The court 
has substantially said, it is your 
constitutional right to take 
slaves into the Federal Terri- 
tories, and to hold them there 
as property. When I say the 
decision was made in a sort of 
way, I mean it was made in a 
divided court, by a bare ma- 
jority of the judges, and they 
not quite agreeing v»nth one an- 
other in the reasons for mak- 
ing it ; that it is so made as 
that its avowed supporters dis- 
agree with one another about 
its meaning, and that it was 
mainly based upon a mistaken 
statement of fact — the state- 
ment in the opinion that "the 

103 



right of property in a slave is 
distinctly and expressly af- 
firmed in the Constitution." 

An inspection of the Consti- 
tution will show that the right 
of property in a slave is not 
" distinctly and expressly af- 
firmed " in it. Bear in mind, 
the judges do not pledge their 
judicial opinion that such right 
is impliedly affi.rmed in the Con- 
stitution ; but they pledge their 
veracity that it is " distinctly 
and expressly " affirmed there 
— "distinctly," that is, not 
mingled with anything else ; 
" expressly," that is, in words 
meaning just that, without the 
aid of any inference, and sus- 
ceptible of no other meaning. 

If they had only pledged 
their judicial opinion that such 
right is affirmed in the instru- 
ment by implication, it would 
be open to others to show that 
neither the word " slave " nor 



" slavery " is to be found in the 
Constitution, nor the word 
"property," even, in any con- 
nection with language alluding 
to the things slave or slavery ; 
and that wherever in that in- 
strument the slave is alluded to, 
he is called a "person"; and 
wherever his master's legal 
right in relation to him is al- 
luded to, it is spoken of as 
"service or labor which may 
be due " — as a debt payable in 
service or labor. Also it would 
be open to show, by contem- 
poraneous history, that this 
mode of alluding to slaves and 
slavery, instead of speaking of 
them, was employed on pur- 
pose to exclude from the Con- 
stitution the idea that there 
could be property in man. 

To show all this is easy "and 
certain. 

When this obvious mistake 
of the judges shall be brought 

105 



to their notice, is it not reason- 
able to expect that they will 
withdraw the mistaken state- 
ment, and reconsider the con- 
clusion based upon it? 

And then it is to be remem- 
bered that " our fathers who 
framed the government under 
which we live " — the men who 
made the Constitution — de- 
cided this same constitutional 
question in our favor long ago : 
decided it without division 
among themselves when mak- 
ing the decision ; without divi- 
sion among themselves about 
the meaning of it after it was 
made, and, so far as any evi- 
dence is left, without basing it 
upon any mistaken statement 
of facts. 

Under all these circum- 
stances, do you really feel 
yourselves justified to break up 
this government unless such a 
court decision as yours is shall 

106 



be at once submitted to as a 
conclusive and final rule of 
political action? But you will 
not abide the election of a 
Republican President! In that 
supposed event, you say, you 
will destroy the Union ; and 
then, you say, the great crime 
of having destroyed it will be 
upon us! That is cool. A 
highwayman holds a pistol to 
my ear, and mutters through 
his teeth, " Stand and deliver, 
or I shall kill you, and then 
you will be a murderer!" 

To be sure, what the robber 
demanded of me — my money 
— was my own; and I had a 
clear right to keep it : but it was 
no more my own than my vote 
is my own ; and the threat of 
death to me, to extort my 
money, and the threat of de- 
struction to the Union, to ex- 
tort my vote, can scarcely be 
distinguished in principle. 

107 



XX 

FAREWELL ADDRESS AT 

SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS, 

FEBRUARY II, I 86 I 

My Fiieiids : No one not in 
my situation can appreciate my 
feeling of sadness at this part- 
ing. To this place, and the 
kindness of these people, I owe 
everything. Here I have lived 
a quarter of a century, and 
have passed from a young to 
an old man. Here my children 
have been born, and one is 
buried. I now leave, not know- 
ing when or whether ever I 
may return, with a task before 
me greater than that which 
rested upon Washington. 
Without the assistance of that 

108 



Divine Being who ever at- 
tended him I cannot succeed. 
With that assistance I cannot 
fail. Trusting in him, who 
can go with me and remain 
with you, and be everywhere 
for good, let us confidently 
hope that all will yet be well. 
To his care commending you, 
as I hope in your prayers you 
will commend me, I bid you an 
affectionate farewell. 



109 



XXI 

FROM HIS REPLY TO THE 

ADDRESS OF WELCOME AT 

INDIANAPOLIS, INDIANA, 

FEBRUARY I I, 1861 

In all trying positions in which 
I shall be placed, and doubtless 
I shall be placed in many such, 
my reliance will be upon you 
and the people of the United 
States ; and I wish you to re- 
member, now and forever, that 
it is your business, and not 
mine ; that if the union of these 
States and the liberties of this 
people shall be lost, it is but 
little to any one man of fifty- 
two years of age, but a great 
deal to the thirty millions of 
people who inhabit these United 

110 



States, and to their posterity in 
all coming time. It is your 
business to rise up and preserve 
the Union and hberty for your- 
selves, and not for me. I 
appeal to you again to con- 
stantly bear in mind that not 
with politicians, not with Presi- 
dents, not with office-seekers, 
but with you, is the question: \ 
Shall the Union and shall the 
liberties of this country be pre- | 
served to the latest generations ? / 



111 



XXII 

ADDRESS IN INDEPENDENCE 
HALL, PHILADELPHIA, FEB- 
RUARY 22, 1861 

I AM filled with deep emotion 
at finding myself standing in 
this place, where were collected 
together the wisdom, the patri- 
otism, the devotion to princi- 
ple, from which sprang the in- 
stitutions under which we live. 
You have kindly suggested to 
me that in my hands is the task 
of restoring peace to our dis- 
tracted country. I can say in 
return, sir, that all the political 
sentiments I entertain have been 
drawn, so far as I have been 
able to draw them, from the 
sentiments which originated in 
112 



and were given to the world 
from this hall. I have never 
had a feeling, politically, that 
did not spring from the senti- 
ments embodied in the Dec- 
laration of Independence. 

I have often pondered over 
the dangers which were incurred 
by the men who assembled here 
and framed and adopted that 
Declaration. I have pondered 
over the toils that were endured 
by the officers and soldiers of 
the army who achieved that 
independence. I have often 
inquired of myself what great 
principle or idea it was that 
kept this Confederacy so long 
together. It was not the mere 
matter of separation of the 
colonies from the motherland, 
but that sentiment in the Dec- 
laration of Independence 
which gave liberty not alone to 
the people of this country, but 
hope to all the world, for all fu- 

« 113 



ture time. It was that which 
gave promise that in due time 
the weights would be Hfted 
from the shoulders of all men, 
and that all should have an 
equal chance. This is the 
sentiment embodied in the 
Declaration of Independence. 

Now, my friends, can this 
country be saved on that basis? 
If it can, I will consider myself 
one of the happiest men in the 
world if I can help to save it. 
If it cannot be saved upon that 
principle, it will be truly awful. 
But if this country cannot be 
saved without giving up that 
principle, I was about to say I 
would rather be assassinated on 
this spot than surrender it. 

Now, in my view of the 
present aspect of affairs, there 
is no need of bloodshed and 
war. There is no necessity for 
it. I am not in favor of such 
a course ; and I may say in ad- 

114 



vance that there will be no 
bloodshed unless it is forced 
upon the government. The 
government will not use force 
unless force is used against it. 
My friends, this is wholly an 
unprepared speech. I did not 
expect to be called on to say a 
word when I came here. I 
supposed I was merely to do 
something toward raising a flag. 
I may, therefore, have said 
something indiscreet. But I 
have said nothing but what I 
am willing to live by, and, if it 
be the pleasure of Almighty 
God, to die by. 



115 



XXIII 

FIRST INAUGURAL ADDRESS, 
MARCH 4, I 86 I 

Fellow-citizens of the United 
States : In compliance with a 
custom as old as the govern- 
ment itself, I appear before 
you to address you briefly, and 
to take in your presence the 
oath prescribed by the Consti- 
tution of the United States to 
be taken by the President " be- 
fore he enters on the execution 
of his office." 

I do not consider it neces- 
sary at present for me to dis- 
cuss those matters of adminis- 
tration about which there is no 
special anxiety or excitement. 

Apprehension seems to exist 

116 



among the people of the South- 
ern States that by the accession 
of a Repubhcan administration 
their property and their peace 
and personal security are to be 
endangered. There has never 
been any reasonable cause for 
such apprehension. Indeed, 
the most ample evidence to the 
contrary has all the while ex- 
isted and been open to their in- 
spection. It is found in nearly 
all the published speeches of 
him who now addresses you. 
I do but quote from one of 
those speeches when I declare 
that " I have no purpose, di- 
rectly or indirectly, to interfere 
with the institution of slavery 
in the States where it exists. 
I believe I have no lawful right 
to do so, and I have no inchna- 
tion to do so." Those who 
nominated and elected me did 
so with full knowledge that I 
had made this and many similar 

117 



declarations, and had never re- 
canted them. And, more than 
this, they placed in the platform 
for my acceptance, and as a law 
to themselves and to me, the 
clear and emphatic resolution 
which I now read : 

Resolved, That the maintenance in- 
violate of the rights of the States, 
and especially the right of each State 
to order and control its own domes- 
tic institutions according to its own 
judgment exclusively, is essential to 
that balance of power on which the 
perfection and endurance of our 
political fabric depend, and we de- 
nounce the lawless invasion by armed 
force of the soil of any State or Ter- 
ritory, no matter under what pretext, 
as among the gravest of crimes. 

I now reiterate these senti- 
ments ; and, in doing so, I 
only press upon the public at- 
tention the most conclusive 
evidence of which the case is 
susceptible, that the property, 
peace, and security of no sec- 

118 



tion are to be in any wise en- 
dangered by the now incoming 
administration. I add, too, 
that all the protection which, 
consistently with the Constitu- 
tion and the laws, can be given, 
will be cheerfully given to all 
the States when lawfully de- 
manded, for whatever cause — 
as cheerfully to one section as 
to another. 

There is much controversy 
about the delivering up of fugi- 
tives from service or labor. 
The clause I now read is as 
plainly written in the Constitu- 
tion as any other of its provi- 
sions : 

No person held to service or 
labor in one State, under the laws 
thereof, escaping into another, shall 
in consequence of any law or regula- 
tion therein be discharged from such 
service or labor, but shall be deliv- 
ered up on claim of the party to 
whom such service or labor may be 
due. 

119 



It is scarcely questioned that 
this provision was intended by 
those who made it for the re- 
claiming of what we call fugitive 
slaves ; and the intention of the 
lawgiver is the law. All mem- 
bers of Congress swear their 
support to the whole Constitu- 
tion — to this provision as much 
as to any other. To the prop- 
osition, then, that slaves whose 
cases come within the terms of 
this clause " shall be delivered 
up," their oaths are unanimous. 
Now, if they would make the 
effort in good temper, could 
they not with nearly equal 
unanimity frame and pass a law 
by means of which to keep 
good that unanimous oath? 

There is some difference of 
opinion whether this clause 
should be enforced by national 
or by State authority ; but surely 
that difference is not a very 
material one. If the slave is 

120 



to be surrendered, it can be of 
but little consequence to him 
or to others by which authority 
it is done. And should any 
one in any case be content that 
his oath shall go unkept on a 
merely unsubstantial contro- 
versy as to how it shall be 
kept? 

Again, in any law upon this 
subject, ought not all the safe- 
guards of liberty known in civ- 
ilized and humane jurispru- 
dence to be introduced, so that 
a free man be not, in any case, 
surrendered as a slave? And 
might it not be well at the 
same time to provide by law 
for the enforcement of. that 
clause in the Constitution 
which guarantees that " the 
citizen of each State shall be 
entitled to all privileges and 
immunities of citizens in the 
several States "? 

I take the official oath to- 

121 



day with no mental reserva- 
tions, and with no purpose to 
construe the Constitution or 
laws by any hypercritical 
rules. And while I do not 
choose now to specify particu- 
lar acts of Congress as proper 
to be enforced, I do suggest 
that it will be much safer for 
all, both in official and private 
stations, to conform to and 
abide by all those acts which 
stand unrepealed, than to vio- 
late any of them, trusting to 
find impunity in having them 
held to be unconstitutional. 

It is seventy-two years since 
the first inauguration of a Presi- 
dent under our National Con- 
stitution. During that period 
fifteen different and greatly 
distinguished citizens have, in 
succession, administered the 
executive branch of the govern- 
ment. They have conducted 
it through many perils, and 

122 



generally with great success. 
Yet, with all this scope of pre- 
cedent, I now enter upon the 
same task for the brief consti- 
tutional term of four years 
under great and peculiar diffi- 
culty. A disruption of the 
Federal Union, heretofore only 
menaced, is now formidably 
attempted. 

I hold that, in contemplation 
of universal law and of the 
Constitution, the Union of 
these States is perpetual. Per- 
petuity is implied, if not ex- 
pressed, in the fundamental law 
of all national governments. 
It is safe to assert that no gov- 
ernment proper ever had a 
provision in its organic law for 
its own termination. Continue 
to execute all the express pro- 
visions of our National Con- 
stitution, and the Union will 
endure forever — it being im- 
possible to destroy it except by 

123 



some action not provided for 
in the instrument itself. 

Again, if the United States 
be not a government proper, 
but an association of States in 
the nature of contract merely, 
can it, as a contract, be peace- 
ably unmade by less than all 
the parties who made it? One 
party to a contract may violate 
it — break it, so to speak ; but 
does it not require all to law- 
fully rescind it? 

Descending from these gen- 
eral principles, we find the prop- 
osition that in legal contem- 
plation the Union is perpetual 
confirmed by the history of the 
Union itself. The Union is 
much older than the Constitu- 
tion. It was formed, in fact, 
by the Articles of Association 
in 1774. It was matured and 
continued by the Declaration 
of Independence in 1776. It 
was further matured, and the 

124 



faith of all the then thirteen 
States expressly plighted and 
engaged that it should be per- 
petual, by the Articles of Con- 
federation in 1778. And, fi- 
nally, in 1787 one of the de- 
clared objects for ordaining 
and establishing the Constitu- 
tion was " to form a more per- 
fect Union." 

But if the destruction of the 
Union by one or by a part only 
of the States be lawfully pos- 
sible, the Union is less perfect 
than before the Constitution, 
having lost the vital element of 
perpetuity. 

It follows from these views 
that no State upon its own 
mere motion can lawfully get 
out of the Union ; that re- 
solves and ordinances to that 
effect are legally void ; and that 
acts of violence, within any 
State or States, against the au- 
thority of the United States, are 

125 



insurrectionary or revolution- 
ary, according to circum- 
stances. 

I therefore consider that, in 
viewof the Constitution and the 
laws, the Union is unbroken ; 
and to the extent of my ability 
I shall take care, as the Con- 
stitution itself expressly enjoins 
upon me, that the laws of the 
Union be faithfully executed in 
all the States. Doing this I 
deem to be only a simple duty 
on my part ; and I shall per- 
form it so far as practicable, 
unless my rightful masters, the 
American people, shall with- 
hold the requisite means, or in 
some authoritative manner di- 
rect the contrary. I trust this 
will not be regarded as a men- 
ace, but only as the declared 
purpose of the Union that it 
will constitutionally defend and 
maintain itself. 

In doing this there needs to 

126 



be no bloodshed or violence ; 
and there shall be none, nnless 
it be forced upon the national 
authority. The power con- 
fided to me will be used to 
hold, occupy, and possess the 
property and places belonging 
to the government, and to col- 
lect the duties and imposts ; but 
beyond what may be necessary 
for these objects, there will be 
no invasion, no using of force 
against or among the people 
anywhere. Where hostility to 
the United States, in any in- 
terior locality, shall be so great 
and universal as to prevent 
competent resident citizens 
from holding the Federal 
offices, there will be no attempt 
to force obnoxious strangers 
among the people for that ob- 
ject. While the strict legal 
right may exist in the govern- 
ment to enforce the exercise 
of these "offices, the attempt to 

127 



do so would be so irritating, 
and so nearly impracticable 
withal, that I deem it better to 
forego for the time the uses of 
such offices. 

The mails, unless repelled, 
will continue to be furnished in 
all parts of the Union. So far 
as possible, the people every- 
where shall have that sense of 
perfect security which is most 
favorable to calm thought and 
reflection. The course here in- 
dicated will be followed unless 
current events and experience 
shall show a modification or 
change to be proper, and in 
every case and exigency my 
best discretion will be exercised 
according to circumstances 
actually existing, and with a 
view and a hope of a peace- 
ful solution of the national 
troubles and the restoration of 
fraternal sympathies and affec- 
tions. 

128 



That there are persons in 
one section or another who 
seek to destroy the Union at 
all events, and are glad of any 
pretext to do it, I will neither 
affirm nor deny ; but if there be 
such, I need address no word 
to them. To those, however, 
who really love the Union may 
I not speak? 

Before entering upon so 
grave a matter as the destruc- 
tion of our national fabric, with 
all its benefits, its memories, 
and its hopes, would it not be 
wise to ascertain precisely why 
we do it? Will you hazard so 
desperate a step while there is 
any possibility that any portion 
of the ills you fly from have no 
real existence? Will you, 
while the certain ills you fly to 
are greater than all the real 
ones you fly from — will you 
risk the commission of so fear- 
ful a mistake? 

9 129 



All profess to be content in 
the Union if all constitutional 
rights can be maintained. Is 
it true, then, that any right, 
plainly written in the Consti- 
tution, has been denied? I 
think not. Happily the human 
mind is so constituted that no 
party can reach to the audacity 
of doing this. Think, if you 
can, of a single instance in 
which a plainly written provi- 
sion of the Constitution has 
ever been denied. If by the 
mere force of numbers a ma- 
jority should deprive a minority 
of any clearly written consti- 
tutional right, it might, in a 
moral point of view, justify 
revolution — certainly would if 
such a right were a vital one. 
But such is not our case. All 
the vital rights of minorities 
and of individuals are so 
plainly assured to them by 
affirmations and negations, 

J30 



guaranties and prohibitions, in 
the Constitution, that contro- 
versies never arise concerning 
them. But no organic law can 
ever be framed with a provision 
specifically applicable to every 
question which may occur in 
practical administration. No 
foresight can anticipate, nor 
any document of reasonable 
length contain, express pro- 
visions for all possible ques- 
tions. Shall fugitives from 
labor be surrendered by na- 
tional or by State authority? 
The Constitution does not ex- 
pressly say. May Congress 
prohibit slavery in the Terri- 
tories? The Constitution does 
not expressly say. Aliist Con- 
gress protect slavery in the 
Territories? The Constitu- 
tion does not expressly say. 

From questions of this class 
spring all our constitutional 
controversies, and we divide 

131 



upon them into majorities and 
minorities. If the minority 
will not acquiesce, the majority 
must, or the government must 
cease. There is no other alter- 
native ; for continuing the gov- 
ernment is acquiescence on one 
side or the other. 

If a minority in such case 
will secede rather than ac- 
quiesce, they make a precedent 
which in turn will divide and 
ruin them ; for a minority of 
their own will secede from them 
whenever a majority refuses to 
be controlled by such minority. 
For instance, why may not any 
portion of a new confederacy a 
year or two hence arbitrarily 
secede again, precisely as por- 
tions of the present Union now 
claim to secede from it? All 
who cherish disunion senti- 
ments are now being educated 
to the exact temper of doing 
this. 

132 



Is there such perfect identity 
of interests among the States to 
compose a' new Union, as to 
produce harmony only, and 
prevent renewed secession? 

Plainly, the central idea of 
secession is the essence of an- 
archy. A majority held in 
restraint by constitutional 
cliecks and hmitations, and 
always changing easily with de- 
liberate changes of popular 
opinions and sentiments, is the 
only true sovereign of a free 
people. Whoever rejects it 
does, of necessity, fly to an- 
archy or to despotism. Una- 
nimity is impossible ; the rule 
of a minority, as a permanent 
arrangement, is wholly inad- 
missible ; so that, rejecting the 
majority principle, anarchy or 
despotism in some form is all 
that is left. 

I do not forget the position, 
assumed by some, that consti- 

133 



tutional questions are to be de- 
cided by the Supreme Court ; 
nor do I deny that such deci- 
sions must be binding, in any 
case, upon the parties to a suit, 
as to the object of that suit, 
while they are also entitled to 
very high respect and consid- 
eration in all parallel cases by 
all other departments of the 
government. And while it is 
obviously possible that such 
decision may be erroneous in 
any given case, still the evil 
effect following it, being Hmited 
to that particular case, with the 
chance that it may be overruled 
and never become a precedent 
for other cases, can better be 
borne than could the evils of a 
different practice. At the 
same time, the candid citizen 
must confess that if the policy 
of the government, upon vital 
questions affecting the whole 
people, is to be irrevocably 

134 



fixed by decisions of the Su- 
preme Court, the instant they 
are made, in ordinary litigation 
between parties in personal ac- 
tions, the people will have 
ceased to be their own rulers, 
having to that extent practi- 
cally resigned their government 
into the hands of that eminent 
tribunal. Nor is there in this 
view any assault upon the court 
or the judges. It is a duty 
from which they may not 
shrink to decide cases properly 
brought before them, and it is 
no fault of theirs if others seek 
to turn their decisions to poht- 
ical purposes. 

One section of our country 
believes slavery is right, and 
ought to be extended, while 
the other believes it is wrong, 
and ought not to be extended. 
This is the only substantial dis- 
pute. The fugitive-slave clause 
of the Constitution, and the law 

135 



for the suppression of the for- 
eign slave-trade, are each as 
well enforced, perhaps, as any 
law can ever be in a community 
where the moral sense of the 
people imperfectly supports the 
law itself. The great body of 
the people abide by the dry 
legal obligation in both cases, 
and a few break over in each. 
This, I think, cannot be per- 
fectly cured ; and it would be 
worse in both cases after the 
separation of the sections than 
before. The foreign slave- 
trade, now imperfectly sup- 
pressed, would be ultimately 
revived, without restriction, in 
one section, while fugitive 
slaves, now only partially sur- 
rendered, would not be surren- 
dered at all by the other. 

Physically speaking, we can- 
not separate. We cannot re- 
move our respective sections 
from each other, nor build an 

136 



impassable wall between them. 
A husband and wife may be 
divorced, and go out of the 
presence and beyond the reach 
of each other ; but the different 
parts of our country cannot do 
this. They cannot but remain 
face to face, and intercourse, 
either amicable or hostile, must 
continue between them. Is it 
possible, then, to make that in- 
tercourse more advantageous 
or more satisfactory after sepa- 
ration than before ? Can aliens 
make treaties easier than friends 
can make laws? Can treaties 
be more faithfully enforced be- 
tween aliens than laws can 
among friends? Suppose you 
go to war, you cannot fight 
always ; and when, after much 
loss on both sides, and no gain 
on either, you cease fighting, 
the identical old questions as to 
terms of intercourse are again 
upon you. 

137 



This country, with its insti- 
tutions, belongs to the people 
who inhabit it. Whenever they 
shall grow weary of the exist- 
ing government, they can exer- 
cise their constitutional right of 
amending it, or their revolu- 
tionary right to dismember or 
overthrow it. I cannot be 
ignorant of the fact that many 
worthy and patriotic citizens 
are desirous of having the Na- 
tional Constitution amended. 
While I make no recommenda- 
tion of amendments, I fully 
recognize the rightful authority 
of the people over the whole 
subject, to be exercised in either 
of the modes prescribed in the 
instrument itself ; and I should, 
under existing circumstances, 
favor rather than oppose a fair 
opportunity being afforded the 
people to act upon it. I will 
venture to add that to me the 
convention mode seems prefer- 

138 



able, in that it allows amend- 
ments to originate with the peo- 
ple themselves, instead of only 
permitting them to take or re- 
ject propositions originated by 
others not especially chosen for 
the purpose, and which might 
not be precisely such as they 
would wish to either accept or 
refuse. I understand a pro- 
posed amendment to the Con- 
stitution — which amendment, 
however, I have not seen — has 
passed Congress, to the effect 
that the Federal Government 
shall never interfere with the 
domestic institutions of the 
States, including that of per- 
sons held to service. To avoid 
misconstruction of what I have 
said, I depart from my purpose 
not to speak of particular 
amendments so far as to say 
that, holding such a provision 
to now be implied constitu- 
tional law, I have no objection 

139 



to its being made express and 
irrevocable. 

The chief magistrate derives 
all his authority from the peo- 
ple, and they have conferred 
none upon him to fix terms for 
the separation of the States. 
The people themselves can do 
this also if they choose ; but the 
executive, as such, has nothing 
to do with it. His duty is to 
administer the present govern- 
ment, as it came to his hands, 
and to transmit it, unimpaired 
by him, to his successor. 

Why should there not be a 
patient confidence in the ulti- 
mate justice of the people ? Is 
there any better or equal hope 
in the world? In our present 
differences, is either party with- 
out faith of being in the right? 
If the Almighty Ruler of Na- 
tions, with his eternal truth 
and justice, be on your side of 
the North, or on yours of the 

140 



South, that truth and that jus- 
tice will surely prevail by the 
judgment of this great tribunal 
of the American people. 

By the frame of the govern- 
ment under which we live, this 
same people have wisely given 
their public servants but little 
power for mischief ; and have, 
with equal wisdom, provided 
for the return of that little to 
their own hands at very short 
intervals. While the people 
retain their virtue and vigi- 
lance, no administration, by any 
extreme of wickedness or folly, 
can very seriously injure the 
government in the short space 
of four years. 

My countrymen, one and all, 
think calmly and well upon this 
whole subject. Nothing valu- 
able can be lost by taking time. 
If there be an object to hurry 
any of you in hot haste to a 
step which you would never 
ui 



take deliberately, that object 
will be frustrated by taking 
time ; but no good object can 
be frustrated by it. Such of 
you as are now dissatisfied still 
have the old Constitution un- 
impaired, and, on the sensitive 
point, the laws of your own 
framing under it ; while the new 
administration will have no 
immediate power, if it would, 
to change either. If it were 
admitted that you who are dis- 
satisfied hold the right side in 
the dispute, there still is no 
single good reason for precipi- 
tate action. Intelligence, pa- 
triotism, Christianity, and a firm 
reliance on Him who has never 
yet forsaken this favored land, 
are still competent to adjust in 
the best way all our present 
difficulty. 

In your hands, my dissatisfied 
fellow-countrymen, and not in 
mine, is the momentous issue 

142 



of civil war. The government 
will not assail you. You can 
have no conflict without being 
yourselves the aggressors. 
You have no oath registered in 
heaven to destroy the govern- 
ment, while I shall have the 
most solemn one to " pre- 
serve, protect, and defend it." 
I am loath to close. We are 
not enemies, but friends. We 
must not be enemies. Though 
passion may have strained, it 
must not break our bonds of 
affection. The mystic chords 
of memory, stretching from 
every battle-field and patriot 
grave to every living heart and 
hearthstone all over this broad 
land, will yet swell the chorus 
of the Union when again 
touched, as surely they will be, 
by the better angels of our 
nature. 



143 



XXIV 

LETTER TO HORACE GREELEY 

August 22, 1862. 

Dear Sir: I have just read 
yours of the 19th addressed to 
myself through the New York 
" Tribune." If there be in it 
any statements or assumptions 
of fact which I may know to 
be erroneous, I do not, now 
and here, controvert them. If 
there be in it any inferences 
which I may beheve to be 
falsely drawn, I do not, now 
and here, argue against them. 
If there be perceptible in it an 
impatient and dictatorial tone, 
I waive it in deference to an 
old friend whose heart I have 
always supposed to be right. 
As to the policy I " seem to 

144 



be pursuing," as you say, I have 
not meant to leave any one in 
doubt. 

I would save the Union. I 
would save it the shortest way 
under the Constitution. The 
sooner the national authority 
can be restored, the nearer the 
Union will be "the Union as 
it was." If there be those who 
would not save the Union un- 
less they could at the same 
time save slavery, I do not 
agree with them. If there be 
those who would not save the 
Union unless they could at the 
same time destroy slavery, I do 
not agree with them. My 
paramount object in this strug- 
gle is to save the Union, and is 
not either to save or to destroy 
slavery. If I could save the 
Union without freeing any 
slave, I would do it ; and if I 
could save it by freeing all the 
slaves, I would do it ; and if I 

10 145 



could save it by freeing some 
and leaving others alone, I 
would also do that. What I do 
about slavery and the colored 
race, I do because I beheve it 
helps to save the Union ; and 
what I forbear, I forbear be- 
cause I do not believe it would 
help to save the Union. I 
shall do less whenever I shall 
beheve what I am doing hurts 
the cause, and I shall do more 
whenever I shall believe doing 
more will help the cause. I 
shall try to correct errors when 
shown to be errors, and I shall 
adopt new viev/s so fast as they 
shall appear to be true views. 
I have here stated my pur- 
pose according to my view of 
official duty ; and I intend no 
modification of my oft-ex- 
pressed personal wish that all 
men everywhere could be free. 
Yours, 

A. Lincoln. 

146 



XXV 

DEPENDENCE UPON GOD 

Reply to an address by Mrs. Gurney, 
September [28 f], 1862. 

I AM glad of this interview, and 
glad to know that I have your 
sympathy and prayers. 

We are indeed going through 
a great trial — a fiery trial. In 
the very responsible position in 
which I happen to be placed, 
being a humble instrument in 
the hands of our heavenly 
Father, as I am, and as we all 
are, to work out his great pur- 
poses, I have desired that all 
my works and acts may be ac- 
cording to his will, and that it 
might be so, I have sought his 
aid ; but if, after endeavoring 

147 



to do my best in the light which 
he affords me, I find my efforts 
fail, I must believe that, for 
some purpose unknown to me, 
he wills it otherwise. 

If I had had my way, this 
war would never have been 
commenced. If I had been 
allowed my way, this war would 
have been ended before this ; 
but we find it still continues, 
and we must believe that he 
permits it for some wise pur- 
pose of his own, mysterious and 
unknown to us ; and though 
with our limited understand- 
ings we may not be able to 
comprehend it, yet we cannot 
but believe that he who made 
the world still governs it. 



U8 



XXVI 

MEDITATION ON THE 
DIVINE WILL 

September [30?], 1862. 

The will of God prevails. In 
great contests each party 
claims to act in accordance 
with the will of God. Both 
rnay be, and one must be, 
wrong. God cannot be for 
and against the same thing at 
the same time. 

In the present civil war it is 
quite possible that God's pur- 
pose is something different from 
the purpose of either party ; 
and yet the human instrumen- 
tahties, working just as they 
do, are of the best adaptation 
to effect his purpose. I am 

149 



almost ready to say that this is 
probably true ; that God wills 
this contest, and wills that it 
shall not end yet. By his 
mere great power on the minds 
of the now contestants, he 
could have either saved or 
destroyed the Union without 
a human contest. Yet the con- 
test began. And, having be- 
gun, he could give the final 
victory to either side any day. 
Yet the contest proceeds. 



150 



XXVII 

LETTER TO GENERAL 
McCLELLAN 

October 13, 1862. 

My dear Sir : You remember 
my speaking to you of what I 
called your over-cautiousness. 
Are you not over-cautious 
when you assume that you can- 
not do what the enemy is con- 
stantly doing? Should you 
not claim to be at least his 
equal in prowess, and act upon 
the claim? 

As I understand, you tele- 
graphed General Halleck that 
you cannot subsist your army 
at Winchester unless the rail- 
road from Harper's Ferry to 
that point be put in working 

151 



order. But the enemy does 
now subsist his army at Win- 
chester, at a distance nearly 
twice as great from raih^oad 
transportation as you would 
have to do without the railroad 
last named. He now wagons 
from Culpeper Court House, 
which is just about twice as 
far as you would have to do 
from Harper's Ferry. He is 
certainly not more than half 
as well provided with wagons 
as you are. 

I certainly should be pleased 
for you to have the advantage 
of the railroad from Harper's 
Ferry to Winchester, but it 
wastes all the remainder of 
autumn to give it to you, and 
in fact ignores the question of 
time, which cannot and must 
not be ignored. 

Again, one of the standard 
maxims of war, as you know, 
is to " operate upon the enemy's 

152 



communications as much as 
possible without exposing your 
own." You seem to act as if 
this apphes against you, but 
cannot apply in your favor. 
Change positions with the 
enemy, and think you not he 
would break your communica- 
tion with Richmond within the 
next twenty-four hours? 

You dread his going into 
Pennsylvania; but if he does 
so in full force, he gives up his 
communications to you abso- 
lutely, and you have nothing to 
do but to follow and ruin him. 
If he does so with less than 
full force, fall upon and beat 
what is left behind all the easier. 
Exclusive of the water-hne, you 
are now nearer Richmond than 
the enemy is by the route that 
you can and he must take. 
Why can you not reach there 
before him, unless you admit 
that he is more than your 

153 



equal on a march? His route 
is the arc of a circle, while 
yours is the chord. The roads 
are as good on yours as on his. 
You know I desired, but did not 
order, you to cross the Potomac 
below, instead of above, the 
Shenandoah and Blue Ridge. 
My idea was that this would at 
once menace the enemy's com- 
munications, which I would 
seize if he would permit. 

If he should move north- 
ward, I would follow him 
closely, holding his communi- 
cations. If he should prevent 
our seizing his communications 
and move toward Richmond, 
I would press closely to him, 
fight him if a favorable oppor- 
tunity should present, and at 
least try to beat him to Rich- 
mond on the inside track. I say 
" try " ; if we never try, we shall 
never succeed. If he makes a 
stand at Winchester, moving 



154 



neither north nor south, I would 
fight him there, on the idea that 
if we cannot beat him when he 
bears the wastage of coming to 
us, we never can when we bear 
the wastage of going to him. 

This proposition is a simple 
truth, and is too important to 
be lost sight of for a moment. 
In coming to us he tenders us 
an advantage which we should 
not waive. We should not so 
operate as to merely drive him 
away. As we must beat him 
somewhere or fail finally, we 
can do it, if at all, easier near 
to us than far away. If we 
cannot beat the enemy where 
he now is, we never can, he 
again being within theintrench- 
ments of Richmond. 

Recurring to the idea of 
going to Richmond on the in- 
side track, the facility of sup- 
plying from the side away from 
the enemy is remarkable, as it 

155 



were, by the different spokes of 
a wheel extending from the hub 
toward the rim, and this whether 
you move directly by the chord 
or on the inside arc, hugging 
the Blue Ridge more closely. 
The chord-line, as j^ou see, car- 
ries you by Aldie, Haymarket, 
and Fredericksburg; and you 
see how turnpikes, railroads, 
and finally the Potomac, by 
Aquia Creek, meet you at all 
points from Washington ; the 
same, only the lines lengthened 
a httle, if you press closer to 
the Blue Ridge part of the way. 
The gaps through the Blue 
Ridge I understand to be about 
the following distances from 
Harper's Ferry, to wit : Ves- 
tal's, 5 miles; Gregory's, 13; 
Snicker's, 18; Ashby's, 28; 
Manassas, 38 ; Chester, 4 5 ; and 
Thornton's, 53. I should 
think it preferable to take the 
route nearest the enemy, dis- 

156 



abling him to make an im- 
portant move withont your 
knowledge, and compelling 
him to keep his forces together 
for dread of you. The gaps 
would enable you to attack if 
you should wish. For a great 
part of the way you would be 
practically between the enemy 
and both Washington and 
Richmond, enabling us to spare 
you the greatest number of 
troops from here. When at 
length running for Richmond 
ahead of him enables him to 
move this way, if he does so, 
turn and attack him in rear. 
But I think he should be en- 
gaged long before such point 
is reached. It is all easy if our 
troops march as well as the 
enemy, and it is unmanly to 
say they cannot do it. This 
letter is in no sense an orden 
Yours truly, 

A. Lincoln. 

157 



XXVIII 

TELEGRAM TO GENERAL 
McCLELLAN 

October 24 [25?], 1862. 

I HAVE just read your despatch 
about sore-tongued and fa- 
tigued horses. Will you par- 
don me for asking what the 
horses of your army have done 
since the battle of Antietam 
that fatigues anything ? 

A. Lincoln. 



158 



XXIX 

EMANCIPATION PROCLAMA- 
TION 

January i, 1863. 

Whereas, on the twenty-sec- 
ond day of September, in the 
year of our Lord one thousand 
eight hundred and sixty-two, a 
proclamation was issued by 
the President of the United 
States, containing, among 
other things, the following, to 
wit : 

" That on the first day of 
January, in the year of our 
Lord one thousand eight hun- 
dred and sixty-three, all per- 
sons held as slaves within any 
State, or designated part of a 

159 



State, the people whereof shall 
then be in rebellion against the 
United States, shall be then, 
thenceforward, and forever 
free ; and the Executive Gov- 
ernment of the United States, 
including the military and naval 
authority thereof, will recog- 
nize and maintain the freedom 
of such persons, and will do no 
act or acts to repress such per- 
sons, or any of them, in any 
efforts they may make for their 
actual freedom, 

" That the Executive will, on 
the first day of January afore- 
said, by proclamation, desig- 
nate the States and parts of 
States, if any, in which the peo- 
ple thereof respectively shall 
then be in rebellion against the 
United States ; and the fact 
that any State, or the people 
thereof, shall on that day be in 
good faith represented in the 
Congress of the United States 

160 



by members chosen thereto at 
elections wherein a majority of 
the qualified voters of such 
State shall have participated, 
shall in the absence of strong 
countervailing testimony be 
deemed conclusive evidence 
that such State and the people 
thereof are not then in rebel- 
lion against the United States." 

Now, therefore, I, Abraham 
Lincoln, President of the 
United States, by virtue of the 
power in me vested as com- 
mander-in-chief of thearmvand 
navy of the United States, in 
time of actual armed rebellion 
against the authority and gov- 
ernment of the United States, 
and as a fit and necessary war 
measure for suppressing said 
rebellion, do, on this first day 
of January, in the year of our 
Lord one thousand eight hun- 
dred and sixty-three, and in 

11 161 



accordance with my purpose 
so to do, publicly proclaimed 
for the full period of loo 
days from the day first above 
mentioned, order and desig- 
nate as the States and parts 
of States wherein the people 
thereof, respectively, are this 
day in rebellion against the 
United States, the following, 
to wit : 

Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana 
(except the parishes of St. 
Bernard, Plaquemines, Jeffer- 
son, St. John, St. Charles, St. 
James, Ascension, Assumption, 
Terrebonne, Lafourche, St. 
.Mary, St. Martin, and Orleans, 
including the city of New Or- 
leans), Mississippi, Alabama, 
Florida, Georgia, South Caro- 
lina, North Carolina, and Vir- 
ginia (except the forty-eight 
counties designated as West 
Virginia, and also the counties 
of Berkeley, Accomac, North- 

162 



ampton, Elizabeth City, York. 
Princess Anne, and Norfolk, 
including the cities of Norfolk 
and Portsmouth), and which 
excepted parts are for the pres- 
ent left precisely as if this proc- 
lamation were not issued. 

And by virtue of the power 
and for the purpose aforesaid, 
I do order and declare that all 
persons held as slaves within 
said designated States and parts 
of States are, and hencefor- 
ward shall be, free ; and that 
the Executive Government of 
the United States, including 
the military and naval authori- 
ties thereof, will recognize and 
maintain the freedom of said 
persons. 

And I hereby enjoin upon 
the people so declared to be 
free to abstain from all violence, 
unless in necessary self-de- 
fense; and I recommend to 
them that, in all cases when 

103 



allowed, they labor faithfully 
for reasonable wages. 

And I further declare and 
make known that such persons 
of suitable condition will be 
received into the armed service 
of the United States to garrison 
forts, positions, stations, and 
other places, and to man ves- 
sels of all sorts in said service. 

And upon this act, sincerely 
believed to be an act of justice, 
warranted by the Constitution 
upon military necessity, I in- 
voke the considerate judgment 
of mankind and the gracious 
favor of Almighty God. 

In witness whereof, I have 
hereunto set my hand, and 
caused the seal of the United 
States to be affixed. 

Done at the city of 

Washington, this first 

day of January, in the 

year of our Lord one 

[l, s.] thousand eight hundred 

164 



and sixty-three, and of 
the independence of the 
United States of Amer- 
ica the eighty-seventh. 

Abraham Lincoln. 
By the President : 

William H. Seward, 

Secretary of State. 



165 



XXX 

LETTER TO THE WORKING-MEN 
OF MANCHESTER, ENGLAND 

January 19, 1863. 

To the Working-men of Man- 
chester : I have the honor to 
acknowledge the receipt of the 
address and resolutions which 
you sent me on the eve of the 
new year. 

When I came, on the 4th of 
March, 1861, through a free and 
constitutional election to pre- 
side in the government of the 
United States, the country was 
found at the verge of civil war. 
Whatever might have been the 
cause, or whosesoever the fault, 
one duty, paramount to all 
others, was before me, namely, 

166 



to maintain and preserve at 
once the Constitution and the 
integrity of the Federal Repub- 
hc. A conscientious purpose 
to perform this duty is the key 
to all the measures of adminis- 
tration which have been and to 
all which will hereafter be pur- 
sued. Under our frame of 
government and my official 
oath, I could not depart from 
this purpose if I would. It is 
not always in the power of 
governments to enlarge or re- 
strict the scope of moral results 
which follow the pohcies that 
they may deem it necessary for 
the public safety from time to 
time to adopt. 

I have understood well that 
the duty of self-preservation 
rests solely with the American 
people ; but I have at the same 
time been aware that favor or 
disfavor of foreign nations 
might have a material in- 



167 



fluence in enlarging or prolong- 
ing the struggle with disloyal 
men in which the country is 
engaged. 

A fair examination of history 
has served to authorize a belief 
that the past actions and influ- 
ences of the United States were 
generally regarded as having 
been beneficial toward man- 
kind, I have, therefore, reck- 
oned upon the forbearance of 
nations. Circumstances — to 
some of which you kindly al- 
lude — induce me especially to 
expect that if justice and good 
faith should be practised by the 
United States, they would en- 
counter no hostile influence on 
the part of Great Britain. It 
is now a pleasant duty to ac- 
knowledge the demonstration 
you have given of your desire 
that a spirit of amity and peace 
toward this country may pre- 
vail in the councils of your 

168 



Queen, who is respected and es- 
teemed in your own country 
only more than she is by the 
kindred nation which has its 
home on this side of the Atlan- 
tic. 

I know and deeply deplore 
the sufferings which the work- 
ing-men at Manchester, and in 
all Europe, are called to endure 
in this crisis. It has been often 
and studiously represented that 
the attempt to overthrow this 
government, which was built 
upon the foundation of human 
rights, and to substitute for it 
one which should rest exclu- 
sively on the basis of human 
slavery, was likely to obtain 
the favor of Europe. Through 
the action of our disloyal citi- 
zens, the working-men of 
Europe have been subjected 
to severe trials, for the purpose 
of forcing their sanction to 
that attempt. Under the cir- 

169 



cumstances, I cannot but re- 
gard your decisive utterances 
upon the question as an in- 
stance of sublime Christian 
heroism which has not been 
surpassed in any age or in any 
country. 

It is indeed an energetic and 
reinspiring assurance of the 
inherent power of truth, and 
of the ultimate and universal 
triumph of justice, humanity, 
and freedom. I do not doubt 
that the sentiments you have 
expressed will be sustained by 
your great nation , and, on the 
other hand, I have no hesita- 
tion in assuring you that they 
will excite admiration, esteem, 
and the most reciprocal feel- 
ings of friendship among the 
American people. I hail this 
interchange of sentiment, there- 
fore, as an augury that what- 
ever else may happen, whatever 
misfortune may befall your 

170 



country or my own, the peace 
and friendship which now exist 
between the two nations will 
be, as it shall be my desire to 
make them, perpetual. 

Abraham Lincoln. 



171 



XXXI 

LETTER TO GENERAL 
HOOKER 

January 26, 1863. 

General : I have placed you at 
the head of the Army of the 
Potomac. Of course I have 
done this upon what appear to 
me to be sufficient reasons, and 
yet I think it best for you to 
know that there are some things 
in regard to which I am not 
quite satisfied with you, 

I beheve you to be a brave 
and skilful soldier, which of 
course I like. I also beheve 
you do not mix politics with 
your profession, in which you 
are right. You have confi- 
dence in yourself, which is a 

172 



valuable if not an indispensa- 
ble quality. You are ambitious, 
which, within reasonable 
bounds, does good rather than 
harm ; but I think that during 
General Burnside's command 
of the army you have taken 
counsel of your ambition and 
thwarted him as much as you 
could, in which you did a great 
wrong to the country and to a 
most meritorious and honorable 
brother officer.' 

I have heard, in such a way 
as to believe it, of your re- 
cently saying that both the army 
and the government needed a 
dictator. Of course it was not 
for this, but in spite of it, that 
I have given you the command. 
Only those generals who gain 
successes can set up dictators. 
What I now ask of you is 
military success, and I will risk 
the dictatorship. The govern- 
ment will support you to the 

173 



utmost of its ability, which is 
neither more nor less than it 
has done and will do for all 
commanders. 

I much fear that the spirit 
which you have aided to infuse 
into the army, of criticizing 
their commander and with- 
holding confidence from him, 
will now turn upon you. I 
shall assist you as far as I can 
to put it down. Neither you 
nor Napoleon, if he were alive 
again, could get any good out 
of an army while such a spirit 
prevails in it. 

And now beware of rashness. 
Beware of rashness, but with 
energy and sleepless vigilance 
go forward and give us vic- 
tories. Yours very truly, 

A. Lincoln. 



174 



XXXII 

LETTER TO GENERAL GRANT 

July 13, 1863. 

My dear Ge?icraL : I do not re- 
member that you and I ever 
met personally. I write this now 
as a grateful acknowledgment 
for the almost inestimable ser- 
vice you have done the coun- 
try. I wish to say a word 
further. When you first 
reached the vicinity of Vicks- 
burg, I thought you should do 
what you finally did — march 
the troops across the neck, run 
the batteries with the transports, 
and thus go below ; and I 
never had any faith, except a 
general hope that you knew 
better than I, that the Yazoo 

175 



Pass expedition and the like 
could succeed. When you got 
below and took Port Gibson, 
Grand Gulf, and vicinity, I 
thought you should go down 
the river and join General 
Banks, and when you turned 
northward, east of the Big 
Black, I feared it was a mis- 
take. I now wish to make the 
personal acknowledgment that 
you were right and I was 
wrong. Yours very truly, 
A. Lincoln. 



176 



XXXIII 

LETTER TO J. C. CONKLING 

August 26, 1863. 

My dear Sir: Your letter 
inviting me to attend a mass- 
meeting of unconditional 
Union men, to be held at the 
capital of Illinois on the third 
day of September, has been re- 
ceived. It would be very 
agreeable to me to thus meet 
my old friends at my own 
home, but I cannot just now 
be absent from here so long as 
a visit there would require. 

The meeting is to be of all 
those who maintain uncondi- 
tional devotion to the Union ; 
and I am sure my old political 
friends will thank me for ten- 

12 177 



dering, as I do, the nation's 
gratitude to those and other 
noble men whom no partizan 
maUce or partizan hope can 
make false to the nation's life. 
There are those who are 
dissatisfied with me. To such 
I would say : You desire peace, 
and you blame me that we do 
not have it. But how can we 
attain it? There are but three 
conceivable ways : First, to 
suppress the rebellion by force 
of arms. This I am trying to 
do. Are you for it? If you 
are, so far we are agreed. If 
you are not for it, a second way 
is to give up the Union, I am 
against this. Are you for it? 
If you are, you should say so 
plainly. If you are not for 
force, nor yet for dissolution, 
there only remains some imag- 
inable compromise. I do not 
believe any compromise em- 
bracing the maintenance of the 

178 



Union is now possible. All I 
learn leads to a directly oppo- 
site belief. The strength of the 
rebellion is its military, its army. 
That army dominates all the 
country and all the people 
within its range. Any offer of 
terms made by any man or 
men within that range, in op- 
position to that army, is simply 
nothing for the present, because 
such man or men have no 
power whatever to enforce their 
side of a compromise, if one 
were made with them. 

To illustrate : Suppose refu- 
gees from the South and peace 
men of the North get together 
'' in convention, and frame and 
proclaim a compromise em- 
bracing a restoration of the 
Union. In what way can that 
compromise be used to keep 
Lee's army out of Pennsyl- 
vania? Meade's army can keep 
Lee's army out of Pennsyl- 

179 



vania, and, I think, can ulti- 
mately drive it out of existence. 
But no paper compromise to 
which the controllers of Lee's 
army are not agreed can at all 
affect that army. In an effort 
at such compromise we should 
waste time which the enemy 
would improve to our disad- 
vantage ; and that would be 
all. A compromise, to be 
effective, must be made either 
with those who control the 
rebel army, or with the people 
first liberated from the domina- 
tion of that army by the success 
of our own army. Now, allow 
me to assure you that no word 
or intimation from that rebel 
army, or from any of the men 
controlling it, in relation to any 
peace compromise, has ever 
come to my knowledge or be- 
lief. All charges and insinua- 
tions to the contrary are de- 
ceptive and groundless. And 

180 



T promise you that if any such 
proposition shall hereafter 
come, it shall not be rejected 
and kept a secret from you. I 
freely acknowledge myself the 
servant of the people, accord- 
ing to the bond of service, — 
the United States Constitution, 
— and that, as such, I am re- 
sponsible to them. 

But to be plain. You are 
dissatisfied with me about the 
negro. Quite likely there is a 
difference of opinion between 
you and myself upon that sub- 
ject, I certainly wish that all 
men could be free, while I 
suppose you do not. Yet I 
have neither adopted nor pro- 
posed any measure which is 
not consistent with even your 
view, provided you are for the 
Union. I suggested compen- 
sated emancipation, to which 
you replied you wished not to 
be taxed to buy negroes. But 

181 



I had not asked you to be taxed 
to buy negroes, except in such 
way as to save you from greater 
taxation to save the Union ex- 
clusively by other means. 

You dislike the emancipation 
proclamation, and perhaps 
would have it retracted. You 
say it is unconstitutional. I 
think differently. I think the 
Constitution invests -its com- 
mander-in-chief with the law 
of war in time of war. The 
most that can be said — if so 
much — is that slaves are prop- 
erty. Is there — has there ever 
been — any question that by the 
law of war property, both of 
enemies and friends, may be 
taken when needed? And is 
it not needed whenever taking 
it helps us, or hurts the enemy? 
Armies, the world over, destroy 
enemies' property when they 
cannot use it ; and even de- 
stroy their own to keep it from 

182 



the enemy. Civilized belliger- 
ents do all in their power to 
help themselves or hurt the 
enemy, except a few things re- 
garded as barbarous or cruel. 
Among the exceptions are the 
massacre of vanquished foes 
and non-combatants, male and 
female. 

But the proclamation, as law, 
either is valid or is not valid. 
If it is not vahd, it needs no re- 
traction. If it is valid, it cannot 
be retracted any more than the 
dead can be brought to life. 
Some of you profess to think 
its retraction would operate fa- 
vorably for the Union. Why 
better after the retraction than 
before the issue? There was 
more than a year and a half of 
trial to suppress the rebellion 
before the proclamation issued ; 
the last one hundred days of 
which passed under an explicit 
notice that it was coming, un- 

183 



less averted by those in revolt 
returning to their allegiance. 
The war has certainly pro- 
gressed as favorably for us 
since the issue of the procla- 
mation as before. 

I know, as fully as one can 
know the opinions of others, 
that some of the commanders 
of our armies in the field, who 
have given us our most im- 
portant successes, believe the 
emancipation policy and the 
use of the colored troops con- 
stitute the heaviest blow yet 
dealt to the rebellion, and that 
at least one of these important 
successes could not have been 
achieved when it was but for 
the aid of black soldiers. 
Among the commanders hold- 
ing these views are some who 
have never had any affinity 
with what is called abolition- 
ism, or with Republican party 
politics, but who hold them 

184 



purely as military opinions. I 
submit these opinions as being 
entitled to some weight against 
the objections often urged that 
emancipation and arming the 
blacks are unwise as military 
measures, and were not adopted 
as such in good faith. 

You say you will not fight to 
free negroes. Some of them 
seem willing to fight for you ; 
but no matter. Fight you, 
then, exclusively, to save the 
Union. I issued the proclama- 
tion on purpose to aid you in 
saving the Union. Whenever 
you shall have conquered all 
resistance to the Union, if I 
shall urge you to continue 
fighting, it will be an apt time 
then for you to declare you 
will not fight to free negroes. 

I thought that in your strug- 
gle for the Union, to whatever 
extent the negroes should cease 
helping the enemy, to that ex- 

185 



tent it weakened the enemy in 
his resistance to you. Do you 
think differently? I thought 
that whatever negroes can be 
got to do as soldiers leaves just 
so much less for white soldiers 
to do in saving the Union. 
Does it appear otherwise to 
you? But negroes, like other 
people, act upon motives. 
Why should they do anything 
for us if we will do nothing for 
them? If they stake their 
lives for us they must be 
prompted by the strongest 
motive, even the promise of 
freedom. And the promise, 
being made, must be kept. 

The signs look better. The 
Father of Waters again goes 
unvexed to the sea. Thanks 
to the great Northwest for it. 
Nor yet wholly to them. 
Three hundred miles up they 
met New England, Empire, 
Keystone, and Jersey, hewing 

186 



their way right and left. The 
sunny South, too, in more 
colors than one, also lent a 
hand. On the spot, their part 
of the history was jotted down 
in black and white. The job 
was a great national one, and 
let none be banned who bore 
an honorable part in it. And 
while those who have cleared 
the great river may well be 
proud, even that is not all. 
It is hard to say that anything 
has been more bravely and 
well done than at Antietam, 
Murfreesboro, Gettysburg, and 
on many fields of lesser note. 
Nor must Uncle Sam's web- 
feet be forgotten. At all the 
watery margins they have been 
present. Not only on the deep 
sea, the broad bay, and the 
rapid river, but also up the 
narrow, muddy bayou, and 
wherever the ground was a lit- 
tle damp, they have been and 

187 



made their tracks. Thanks to 
all : for the great republic — for 
the principle it lives by and 
keeps ahve — for man's vast fu- 
ture — thanks to all. 

Peace does not appear so 
distant as it did. I hope it 
will come soon, and come to 
stay ; and so come as to be 
worth the keeping in all future 
time. It will then have been 
proved that among free men 
there can be no successful ap- 
peal from the ballot to the bul- 
let, and that they who take such 
appeal are sure to lose their 
case and pay the cost. And 
then there will be some black 
men who can remember that 
with silent tongue, and clenched 
teeth, and steady eye, and well- 
poised bayonet, they have 
helped mankind on to this 
great consummation, while I 
fear there will be some white 
ones unable to forget that with 

188 



malignant heart and deceitful 
speech they strove to hinder it. 
Still, let us not be over-san- 
guine of a speedy final triumph. 
Let us be quite sober. Let us 
diligently apply the means, 
never doubting that a just God, 
in his own good time, will give 
us the rightful result. 

Yours very truly, 

A. Lincoln. 



189 



XXXIV 

THE GETTYSBURG ADDRESS 

November 19, 1863. 

Fourscore and seven years 
ago our fathers brought forth 
on this continent a new nation, 
conceived in hberty, and dedi- 
cated to the proposition that 
all men are created equal. 

Now we are engaged in a 
great civil war, testing whether 
that nation, or any nation so 
conceived and so dedicated, 
can long endure. We are met 
on a great battle-field of that 
war. We have come to dedi- 
cate a portion of that field as 
a final resting-place for those 
who here gave their lives that 
that nation might live. It is 

190 



altogether fitting and proper 
that we should do this. 

But, in a larger sense, we 
cannot dedicate — we cannot 
consecrate — we cannot hallow 
—this ground. The brave 
men, living and dead, who 
struggled here, have conse- 
crated it far above our poor 
power to add or detract. The 
world will little note nor long 
remember what we say here, 
but it can never forget what 
they did here. It is for us, the 
living, rather, to be dedicated 
here to the unfinished work 
which they who fought here 
have thus far so nobly ad- 
vanced. It is rather for us to 
be here dedicated to the great 
task remaining before us — that 
from these honored dead we 
take increased devotion to that 
cause for which they gave the 
last full measure of devotion ; 
that we here highly resolve that 

191 



these dead shall not have died 
in vain ; that this nation, under 
God, shall have a new birth of 
freedom ; and that government 
of the people, by the people, for 
the people, shall not perish from 
the earth. 



192 



r' 



XXXV 

RESPONSE TO A SERENADE 

November lo, 1864. 

It has long been a grave ques- 
tion whether any government, 
not too strong for the hberties 
of its people, can be strong 
enough to maintain its existence 
in great emergencies. On this 
point the present rebellion 
brought our republic to a 
severe test, and a Presidential 
election occurring in regular 
course during the rebellion 
added not a little to the strain. 
If the loyal people united 
were put to the utmost of their 
strength by the rebellion, must 
they not fail when divided and 
partially paralyzed by a polit- 
ical war among themselves? 

13 193 



But the election was a ne- 
cessity. ^Ve cannot have free 
government without elections ; 
and if the rebellion could force 
us to forego or postpone a 
national election, it might fairly 
claim to have already con- 
quered and ruined us. The 
strife of the election is but 
human nature practically ap- 
plied to the facts of the case. 
What has occurred in this case 
must ever recur in similar cases. 
Human nature will not change. 
In any future great national 
trial, compared with the men 
of this, we shall have as weak 
and as strong, as silly and as 
wise, as bad and as good. Let 
us, therefore, study the inci- 
dents of this as philosophy to 
learn wisdom from, and none 
of them as wrongs to be re- 
venged. 

But the election, along with 
its incidental and undesirable 

194 



strife, has done good too. It 
has demonstrated that a peo- 
ple's government can sustain a 
national election in the midst 
of a great civil war. Until 
now it has not been known 
to the world that this was a 
possibility. It shows, also, 
how sound and how strong 
we still are. It shows that, 
even among candidates of the 
same party, he who is most de- 
voted to the Union and most 
opposed to treason can receive 
most of the people's votes. It 
shows, also, to the extent yet 
known, that we have more 
men now than we had when the 
war began. Gold is good in its 
place, but living, brave, patri- 
otic men are better than gold. 
But the rebellion continues, 
and now that the election is 
over, may not all having a 
common interest reunite in a 
common effort to save our 

195 



common country? For my 
own part, I have striven and 
shall strive to avoid placing any 
obstacle in the way. So long 
as I have been here I have not 
willingly planted a thorn in any 
man's bosom. While I am 
deeply sensible to the high 
compliment of a reelection, and 
duly grateful, as I trust, to Al- 
mighty God for having di- 
rected my countrymen to a 
right conclusion, as I think, for 
their own good, it adds no- 
thing to my satisfaction that 
any other man may be disap- 
pointed or pained by the result. 
May I ask those who have 
not differed with me to join 
with me in this same spirit to- 
ward those who have? And 
now let me close by asking 
three hearty cheers for our 
brave soldiers and seamen 
and their gallant and skilful 
commanders. 

196 



XXXVI 

LETTER OF CONDOLENCE TO 

MRS. BIXBY OF BOSTON, 

MASSACHUSETTS 

November 21, 1864. 

Dear Madam : I have been 
shown in the files of the War 
Department a statement of the 
Adjutant-General of Massa- 
chusetts that you are the 
mother of five sons who have 
died gloriously on the field of 
battle. I feel how weak and 
fruitless must be any words of 
mine which should attempt to 
beguile you from the grief of a 
loss so overwhelming. But I 
cannot refrain from tendering 
to you the consolation that may 

197 



be found in the thanks of the 
Republic they died to save. I 
pray that our heavenly Father 
may assuage the anguish of 
your bereavement, and leave 
you only the cherished memory 
of the loved and lost, and the 
solemn pride that must be 
yours to have laid so costly a 
sacrifice upon the altar of free- 
dom. 

Yours very sincerely 
and respectfully, 

Abraham Lincoln. 



198 



XXXVII 

SECOND INAUGURAL ADDRESS 

March 4, 1865. 

Felloiv-coiuitrymeii : At this 
second appearing to take the 
oath of the Presidential office, 
there is less occasion for an 
extended address than there 
was at the first. Then a state- 
ment, somewhat in detail, of a 
course to be pursued, seemed 
fitting and proper. Now, at 
the expiration of four years, 
during which pubhc declara- 
tions have been constantly 
called forth on every point and 
phase of the great contest 
which still absorbs the atten- 
tion and engrosses the energies 
of the nation, little that is new 

199 



could be presented. The prog- 
ress of our arms, upon which 
all else chiefly depends, is as 
well known to the public as to 
myself ; and it is, I trust, rea- 
sonably satisfactory and en- 
couraging to all. With high 
hope for the future, no pre- 
diction in regard to it is ven- 
tured. 

On the occasion correspond- 
ing to this four years ago, all 
thoughts were anxiously di- 
rected to an impending civil 
war. All dreaded it — all 
sought to avert it. While the 
inaugural address was being de- 
livered from this place, devoted 
altogether to saving the Union 
without war, insurgent agents 
were in the city seeking to de- 
stroy it without war — seeking 
to dissolve the Union, and di- 
vide effects, by negotiation. 
Both parties deprecated war ; 
but one of them would make 

200 



war rather than let the nation 
surv^ive ; and the other would 
accept war rather than let it 
perish. And the war came. 

One eighth of the whole 
population were colored slaves, 
not distributed generally over 
the Union, but localized in the 
southern part of it. These 
slaves constituted a pecuhar 
and powerful interest. All 
knew that this interest was, 
somehow, the cause of the war. 
To strengthen, perpetuate, and 
extend this interest was the 
object for which the insurgents 
would rend the Union, even by 
war ; while the government 
claimed no right to do more 
than to restrict the territorial 
enlargement of it. 

Neither party expected for 
the war the magnitude or the 
duration which it has already 
attained. Neither anticipated 
that the cause of the conflict 

201 



might cease with, or even be- 
fore, the conflict itself should 
cease. Each looked for an 
easier triumph, and a result less 
fundamental and astounding. 
Both read the same Bible, and 
pray to the same God ; and each 
invokes his aid against the 
other. It may seem strange 
that any men should dare to 
ask a just God's assistance in 
wringing their bread from the 
sweat of other men's faces ; but 
let us judge not, that we be not 
judged. The prayers of both 
could not be answered — that 
of neither has been answered 
fully. 

The Almighty has his own 
purposes. "Woe unto the 
world because of offenses! for 
it must needs be that offenses 
come ; but woe to that man by 
whom the offense cometh ! " If 
we shall suppose that American 
slavery is one of those offenses 

202 



which, in the providence of 
God, must needs come, but 
which, having continued 
through his appointed time, he 
now wills to remove, and that 
he gives to both North and 
South this terrible war, as the 
woe due to those by whom the 
offense came, shall we discern 
therein any departure from 
those divine attributes which 
the believers in a living God 
always ascribe to him? "Fondly 
do we hope — fervently do we 
pray — that this mighty scourge 
of war may speedily pass away. 
Yet, if God wills that it con- 
tinue until all the wealth piled 
by the bondman's two hundred 
and fifty years of unrequited 
toil shall be sunk, and until 
every drop of blood drawn with 
the lash shall be paid by an- 
other drawn with the sword, as 
was said three thousand years 
ago, so still it must be said, 

203 



" The judgments of the Lord 
are true, and righteous alto- 
gether." 

With maHce toward none; 
with charity for all ; with firm- 
ness in the right, as God gives 
us to see the right, let us strive 
on to finish the work we are 
in ; to bind up the nation's 
wounds ; to care for him who 
shall have borne the battle, and 
for his widow, and his orphan 
— to do all which mav achieve 
and cherish a just and lasting 
peace among ourselves, and 
with all nations. 



204 



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